Prosecutors Present Final Charges Against Karadzic

Hague tribunal prosecutors have issued a final set of charges against former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who will now be asked to enter a plea at a hearing on March 3.



Judges asked prosecutors at the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, to file an amended indictment on February 26 – the second time they have done so since Karadzic was taken into custody in July 2008.



The trial chamber is expected to confirm this as the final version of the indictment, allowing a plea to be entered.



Judges had dropped one of the charges from a previous amended version of the indictment first submitted by prosecutors in September 2008 because they had mistakenly not provided the necessary supporting evidence. However, on February 26, the trial chamber agreed to reconsider, after prosecutors produced the material in question.



The alleged killing of up to 140 detainees at the Susica prison camp in the Bosnian town of Vlasenica has now been reinstated as a charge after prosecutors argued that the defendant carried responsibility for the incident, which had resulted in a large number of victims.



In a ruling issued by Judge Iain Bonomy, omitting this charge “could result in injustice”.



The latest version of the indictment will charge Karadzic with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including crimes of genocide, persecution, extermination, killing and deportation carried out in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995.



The new indictment contains two separate counts of genocide, one pertaining to acts committed in ten Bosnian municipalities – Visegrad, Prijedor, Bratunac, Foca, Brcko, Kljuc, Kotor Varos, Sanski Most, Vlasenica and Zvornik – and a second covering the massacre of nearly 8,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995.



The final indictment covers just 27 of the 41 crime sites contained in Karadzic’s former indictment, which was last updated in April 2000.



The accused has refused to enter a plea on any charges so far, explaining that he would wait until the indictment was confirmed. He is expected to plead “not guilty”.



The hearing on March 3 will mark a turning point in the proceedings against Karadzic, as finalised charges will be in place and all parties will be able to focus on preparing for the trial itself.



Judge Bonomy has made no secret of his desire to accelerate proceedings. At a hearing last week, he asked prosecutors to submit an outline of its pre-trial brief by March 30. This will provide details of how prosecutors will build their case against the defendant and what evidence they will present.



Bonomy said that a start date for the trial will be set soon. It is expected to be sometime during the summer.



Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.