PROSECUTORS AGAINST REDUCTION OF CHARGES IN KARADZIC TRIAL

IT'S A FACT: REDUCING CHARGES AGAINST RADOVAN KARADZIC IS CONTRARY TO THE INTEREST OF A FAIR AND EXPEDITIOUS TRIAL

PHOTO: Radovan Karadzic (aka: Dragan
David Dabic) before his arrest.

Earlier, we wrote about the ICTY judges who asked Prosecutors to cut more charges against Radovan Karadzic for the purpose of speeding up the trial. It seems that these days criminals have more rights than the victims. We know that in 2006, Hague Tribunal's judges introduced impunity for war crimes - something that former Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte vehemently opposed.

In line with the judges' request, the Office of the Prosecutor officially responded by proposing ways in which the scope of the Karadzic trial may be reduced.

The prosecution, in its filings, reduced the number of municipalities where incidents related to the indictment took place, but kept nearly intact its planned testimony on the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre - the worst genocide in Europe since World War Two in which at least 8,372 people died and 30,000 were ethnically cleansed from the area in a matter of several days.

"In the prosecution’s view, bearing in mind the structure of the indictment and the interlinking of the charges, it would be ’neither desirable nor necessary" and "contrary to the interests of a fair and expeditious trial’ to remove any of the counts in the indictment, once the proposed reductions have been done."Any further reductions, may result in an indictment that is no longer reasonably representative of the case as a whole and would negatively affect prosecution's ability to fairly present its case", the prosecution concluded.

It is important to note that in the past, the Office of the Prosecutor already reduced charges of Bosnian genocide from 41 municipalities to 27, and later to only 11, plus this latest reduction, which is another insult to the injury. It is unacceptable to ask prosecutors to cut more charges against the primary architect of the Bosnian genocide - which is a legally established case of genocide.

As we said earlier - and we will repeat it again - if the wise U.N. judges are so concerned about the length of Karadzic's trial, then they can send him back to Sarajevo and let the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina handle the case in front of the international and multi-ethnic judges of the court.

PHOTO: Radovan Karadzic (aka: Dragan Dabic) on trial.

SREBRENICA 1992-1995: From 1992-1995 Serbs from heavily militarized villages around Srebrenica had forced approximately 40,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees to live in the Srebrenica ghetto with little or no means of survival. Furthermore, Serbs around Srebrenica had terrorized Srebrenica population by constantly attacking neighbouring Bosnian Muslim villages. In July 1995 the Bosnian Serb army staged a brutal takeover of Srebrenica and its surrounding area, where they proceeded to perpetrate genocide. Bosnian Serb soldiers separated Bosniak families, forcibly expelled 25,000-30,000 Bosniaks, and summarily executed at least 8,372 Bosnian Muslims - boys, men, and elderly.