New Karadzic Indictment Will Speed Trial, says Brammertz
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Earlier this week, prosecutors at The Hague filed a new revised indictment against Karadzic and they are waiting for confirmation from the court.
The amended indictment charges Karadzic, in two separate counts for Genocide in 10 municipalities and Srebrenica, and additionally charges him for a joint criminal enterprise, which was not part of the previous indictment.
At the same time, instead of crimes in 41 municipalities, he is charged with crimes committed in 27 municipalities during the war, but the indictment now describes in detail the destruction of Sarajevo, certain detention centres in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as destruction of cultural and religious objects. Read more: http://www.bim.ba/en/134/10/13385/
“It is now really up to the judges to decide if it is and when it will be accepted,” Serge Brammertz, the top prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia told BIRN’s Justice Report.
“I think it is a general wish to make sure that all our cases, in general, are on time and with completed according to the strategy we have devised. But it is important that justice is done and we are doing our best,” he added..
Referring to differences between the Karadzic indictment of 2000 and the last one filed on September 21, 2008, Brammertz said that in the new motion they wanted to clarify the indictment.
“We have taken into consideration newly-established facts and we have tried to somehow include the investigations about what happened over those four years (of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina) into this indictment. This will reduce the number of evidence needed to be submitted.”
Asked if the expects to see at The Hague wartime Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, the second most wanted fugitive by the tribunal, indicted for crimes, including genocide, Brammertz was cautious in his reply.
“You know we are cooperating in every possible way with our Serbian colleagues. And we hope that progress will be achieved soon. I have to say that after the last visit to Belgrade I am cautiously optimistic that other results can be achieved but, we are working on that.”
“The United Nations Security Council has given a deadline. It is normal that we, as professionals, are trying as much as possible to meet that deadline. But we are speaking about justice, about a process. We speak about a significant number of victims waiting for justice to be done. So, we will try to work as fast as we can, in respect with international standards,” said Brammertz.
Brammertz is a guest speaker at a conference in the Norwegian capital looking at the prioritising cases in the criminal justice system. Besides Brammertz, guests are also attending from the United States, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Indonesia and Cambodia among others.
