Mladic: Defence Attorney May Be Appointed in Ten Days

Martin Petrov of the Registry of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, said at press conference held at The Hague that indictee Mladic had submitted a list of seven attorne ys, adding that he had met most of them already.
 
“We hope that we shall organise visits by the remaining candidates over the course of next week. If all goes well and Mladic selects his favourite attorney, we would like to appoint a permanent defence counsel within the next ten days,” Petrov said.
 
During his two initial appearances before ICTY judges, Mladic, who is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and the violation of the laws and customs of war, was represented by temporary duty counsel Aleksandar Aleksic.
 
However, when he appeared in Court on July 4 this year, Mladic said that he did not want Aleksic to represent him in the courtroom, expressing a wish to be accompanied by Milos Saljic, a Serbian attorney, and Aleksandar Mezyaev, a Russian professor.
 
Petrov told journalists that Mladic had still not “expressed, through official channels, his opinion about the permanent defence counsel”, adding that he hoped that he would do it within the next few days. He said, after that those defence attorneys would be checked in order to make sure that they fulfilled The Hague Tribunal’s conditions.
 
Mladic was arrested in Serbia on May 26 this year after being on the run for about 15 years. The Hague Prosecution charges him with genocide in seven Bosnian municipalities in 1992 and Srebrenica in 1995, as well as the persecution of the non-Serb population in 20 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and
participating in a sniping and shelling campaign conducted in Sarajevo.
 
During his initial appearance on June 3 this year Mladic asked the Court to let him have additional time in order to familiarise himself with the indictment prior to entering his plea.
 
At the hearing held on July 4 Mladic was removed from the courtroom after having interrupted the Trial Chamber several times.
 
Arepresentative of the Registry said, during the press conference, that indictee Mladic’s health condition had been checked several times already, but no “expertise on his capability to follow the trial” had been conducted.
 
Responding to the journalists’ questions, Frederick Swinnen of the Hague Tribunal said that it had still not been decided whether the indictments against Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the former President of Republika Srpska, who is on trial before ICTY, would be joined.
 
“We are considering numerous options on how to present evidence once the trial has begun,” Swinnen said.

D.Dz