Karadzic Indictment May Be Updated

Prosecutors at The Hague are considering amending the indictment against Radovan Karadzic “in line with new court practice and evidence collected in the meantime,” Olga Kavran, a spokesperson, told Justice Report.

Although it has still not been decided which prosecutor will cover the case, Kavran said the prosecution was“prepared” for Karadzic’s trial, while adding that it was premature to mention potential witnesses.

“The team is scrutinizing the indictment and considering the need to harmonize it with the court practice adopted in the meantime and the collected evidence,” she said.

“After all, it has been eight years since it was filed. In procedural terms, if the prosecution determines that the indictment needs to be changed it will be sent to judges for their confirmationand final decision. The indictment filed in 2000 remains valid until such time.”

The first indictments against Karadzic, containing 36 counts, were filed by Chief Prosecutor Richard Goldstone in July and November 1995. Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte joined the two indictments into a single indictment, containing 11 counts, in 2000.

Karadzic is charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity, violation of laws and practices of warfare and grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

He is charged also with having “planned, abetted, ordered, committed and supported the destruction of national, ethnic, racial or religious groups of Bosniaks and Croats”.

The indictment mentions Momcilo Krajisnik and Biljana Plavsic as his closest associates. The Hague Prosecution alleges that they were all members of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces of the Serbian Republic as of 1992.

After admitting her own guilt, Plavsic, one of the principal Bosnian Serb wartime leaders, was sentenced to 11years’ imprisonment, having been convicted of crimes against humanity.

Krajisnik, another wartime leader of Bosnian Serbs, was sentenced under a first instance verdict to 27 years. The verdict acquitted him of responsibility for genocide and complicity in genocide.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina has filed several indictments charging former senior officials of the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, and the Republika Srpska, RS, with a joint criminal enterprise conducted in collaboration with Radovan Karadzic.

His name is mentioned in the indictment against Gojko Klickovic, Jovan Ostojic and Mladen Drljaca, charged over crimes committed in the Bosanska Krupa area.

The indictment alleges that members of the joint criminal enterprise aimed at creating “a separate state of Bosnian Serbs, from which most non-Serbian residents would be permanently evicted”.

During the war, Karadzic was president of Republika Srpska and member of the Supreme Command of the RS armed forces. The indictment alleges that Bosnian Serb forces, the SDS and other government authorities acted under his leadership and control.

The indictment further alleges that from 1991 to 1995, Karadzic planned and ordered a protracted campaign of shelling and sniping directed against civilians in Sarajevo, “inflicting terror upon its citizens”.

The siege of Sarajevo lasted 1,425 days in total. Data collected by the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo suggests more than 13,000 people died in Sarajevo in the course of the war, while 750 are still missing. These figures are notfinal.

“Because of the shelling and sniping against civilians, the life of every Sarajevo inhabitant became a daily struggle to survive. Without gas, electricity or running water, people were forced to venture outside to find basic living necessities. Each time they did, whether to collect wood, fetch water or buy some bread, they risked death,” the indictment says.

The Hague Tribunal considers the massacres of people at Sarajevo’s Markale market the gravest of all the crimes committed in Sarajevo. Dozens of shoppers were killed or wounded when the market place was bombed on August 28, 1995.

The Trial Chamber sentenced Dragomir Milosevic, former commander of Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, to 33 years’ imprisonment for this atrocity.

On the basis of evidence presented during the main trial, the Chamber determined that the grenade that hit Markale was fired from Republika Srpska Army, VRS, positions, thus rejecting defence claims that the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina staged the massacre in a bid to trigger international intervention.

In 1994, Milosevic took over the command of the corps from General Stanislav Galic, who was sentenced by the Hague Tribunal to life imprisonment for the siege of Sarajevo.

The forces allegedly led by Karadzic undertook a series of actions aiming at “significant reduction of the number of Bosniaks, Croats and other non-Serb” in those areas declared as part of RS, the indictment alleges. It says Bosnian Serb forces managed to “secure physical control” , among others, 41 of Bosnia’s municipalities.

“The SDS and the local authorities established detention camps and prisons in those municipalities. Following the attacks on those municipalities, the Bosnian Serb forces gathered tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, and forced them to walk to the concentration centres. From those centres they were transferred to detention camps and prisons,” the indictment alleges.

Some of these detention camps included the Vuk Karadzic school building in Bratunac, eastern Bosnia, Manjaca in Banja Luka, north-west Bosnia, Batkovic in Bijeljina, north-east Bosnia, Lukain Brcko, northern Bosnia, Percin disko in Doboj, northern Bosnia, the Correctional Facility in Foca, easern Bosnia, Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje in Prijedor, north-west Bosnia and Susica in Vlasenica, eastern Bosnia.

“Detainees lived in an atmosphere of constant fear, which was further incited by brutal treatment of randomly selected victims,” the indictment reads. “Detainees were constantly exposed to physical, mental and sexual abuse, as well as other forms of degrading and humiliating circumstances, which represented a fundamental attacks against their humanity.”

The prosecution insists that Karadzic exercised overall control and authority over the soldiers and police who worked in and managed the detention camps and prisons.

According to statements given by witnesses at the trial of Momcilo Mandic before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Karadzic personally visited some of the detention camps to “check what the conditions were like”.

In July 2007, a first instance verdict was pronounced against Mandic, a former justice minister in Karadzic’s government, acquitting him of the charges for crimes against humanity and civilians. Among other things, the State Prosecution had charged him with setting up and running the detention camps in the RS.

The Hague Prosecution charges Karadzic with genocide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Srebrenica in particular, in July 1995, when this eastern Bosnian town was a protected zone, under a decision made by the UN Security Council.

“Radovan Karadzic, as supreme commander, ordered the Bosnian Serb forces to create impossible conditions of life, involving complete uncertainty, which did not give any hope for survival to citizens, in particular those living in Srebrenica,” the Prosecution considers.

One part of the indictment describes how the Bosnian Serb forces executed thousands of men in “an organized and systematic way” at various locations in Srebrenica and its vicinity from July 11 to July 18, 1995. One location mentioned in the indictment is the Agricultural Cooperative at Kravica, where more than 1,000 Bosniaks were killed on July 13, 1995.

11 former policemen and RS soldiers are charged with this crime before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Radovan Karadzic knew or had the reason to know that the forces, which acted under his leadership and control, committed those crimes, and he failed to undertake the necessary and reasonable measures to punish the perpetrators of those crimes,” the indictment alleges.

Following his arrest in Belgrade on July 21, 2008, it is expected that Karadzic will be extradited shortly to the tribunal.

Merima Husejnovic is BIRN BIRN – Justice Report journalist. [email protected] Justice Report is weekly online BIRN publication.