DID YOU KNOW?  -- Three years before the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide, Serbs torched Bosniak villages and killed at least 3,166 Bosniaks around Srebrenica. In 1993, the UN described the besieged situation in Srebrenica as a "slow-motion process of genocide." In July 1995, Serbs forcibly expelled 25,000 Bosniaks, brutally raped many women and girls, and systematically killed 8,000+ men and boys (DNA confirmed).

14 October, 2009

RADOVAN KARADZIC TRIAL SET FOR 26 OCTOBER (AT THE LATEST)

PHOTO: Radovan Karadzic: the architect of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide in which, according to the Krstic appeal judgement, the 40000 Bosniaks were targeted for extinction.

Radovan Karadzic's genocide trial before the United Nations war crimes tribunal will start on 26 October at the latest after the rejection of his appeal.

Karadzic was appealing the decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to reject his immunity claim. Karadzic repeatedly claimed that he struck an agreement with the U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke granting him alleged immunity from prosecution if he steps down as the president of the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska - region created as a result of the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Bosniak population. Holbrooke has repeatedly denied making such an agreement with Karadzic.

“Even if the alleged agreement were proved, it would not limit the jurisdiction of the tribunal, it would not otherwise be binding on the tribunal and it would not trigger the doctrine of abuse of process,” the ICTY’s appeals chamber said on Monday. In other words, if the deal claimed by Karadzic really existed, it would not have any legal standing as Holbrooke was not acting with the authority of the UN Security Council.

Radovan Karadzic was the architect of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide in which 30,000 Bosnian Muslims had been forcibly expelled from the enclave and at least 8,372 men and boys summarily executed and dumped into mass graves.

After more than a decade as a fugitive, he was arrested a year ago and transferred to The Hague to stand trial on charges of genocide, complicity in genocide, extermination, murder, wilful killing, persecutions, deportations, inhumane acts and other crimes. He was living under a disguise as a practitioner of alternative medicine. He used the assumed identity of Dragan Dabic (aka: Dragan David Dabic).

The Hague Tribunal has already trimmed the scope of Karadzic's indictment substantially, so they can finish the trial as quickly as possible. In the past, the Office of the Prosecutor was under the intense pressure to reduce charges of Bosnian genocide from 41 municipalities to 27, and later to only 11.