Hague Prosecution To Ignore Karadzic Letter

The Prosecution said they considered the letter had not been submitted according to the court rules and asked the pre-trial chamber to “consider issuing instructions” to the accused on how to submit motions in future.

“The correspondence is not a motion grounded on any of the rules… and would require the Prosecution to speculate about its procedural and factual basis, as well as the relief sought. Accordingly, the Prosecution will not be responding,” the Prosecution said.

Karadzic submitted the letter on July 31, following his first appearance in the front of the tribunal. In his letter, Karadzic wrote about alleged irregularities occurring before his arrest in Belgrade on July 21.

Karadzic also mentioned an alleged agreement he made with the former US special envoy for the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke, about his non-arrest if he were to stay out of Bosnia’s political and public life.He said he had been arrested three day before the officially announced date, adding that he was kidnapped and held in an unknown place without basic rights, before being taken into the custody of the Special Court in Belgrade.

Karadzic is indicted by the tribunal, ICTY, for genocide,compliance in genocide and crimes against humanity. In the letter his expressed concerns about the fairness and regularity of his future trial. He was arrested last month in Belgrade holding false documents under the name Dragan Dabic.

The ICTY is still looking for two other top Serbian suspects, the former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic and the former Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic.