Karadzic: Indictee Signed Directive No. 7

Mihajlovic described how Karadzic’s orders and decisions were conveyed through the Communications Centre in Pale. She said that Karadzic held all of his meetings behind closed doorS and that he never asked her to take notes during those meetings. During the course of cross-examination Karadzic said, among other things, that his Directive no. 7 was not made in his cabinet. The witness confirmed the allegation. “Directive no. 7 was made somewhere else. It was not signed in the Cabinet. It does not contain the President’s stamp,” Karadzic said. “This is definitely not our document. It contains a stamp of the Main Headquarters of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS,” the witness said.

When asked by presiding judge O-Gon Kwon if the Directive contained Karadzic’s signature, the witness said: “I can say, with certainty, that this is Karadzic’s signature”.

Under Directive no. 7, which was issued in March 1995, Karadzic ordered the VRS to make the life of the Bosniak population in Srebrenica and Zepa “unbearable by conducting military operations and depriving them of humanitarian aid”. Under the Directive, Karadzic ordered the VRS to “create an unbearable situation of complete insecurity without any hope for survival and life of the population in Srebrenica and Zepa” by conducting carefully deliberated and methodical military operations.

Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska and supreme Commander of the VRS, is charged with genocide in Srebrenica and THE persecution of Bosniak civilians from Srebrenica and Zepa in July 1995.

According to The Hague Prosecution’s charges, Karadzic is charged with persecuting Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorising civilians in Sarajevo by long-lasting shelling and sniping and taking members of the United Nations, UN peace mission hostage in the period from 1992 to 1995.

While examining the witness, Karadzic said that he signed many documents “without reading them, in case they were prepared by one of my associates”, adding that he “signed them somewhere else, not in my Cabinet”. The witness confirmed his statement.

When asked by judge Kwon whether the Defence was saying that Karadzic did not sign the Directive no. 7, Peter Robinson, legal counselor of the indictee, said that this was not what the Defence said.

Karadzic asked Mihajlovic to review one of the six books of documents containing his signature, which was published by “The International Committee for Truth about Radovan Karadzic” led by Belgrade attorneys Smilja Avramov and Kosta Cavoski.

After having looked through one of the books, the witness confirmed that it contained documents from Karadzic’s Cabinet.

The indictee mentioned that the documents were gathered by his daughter Sonja, because he had already “gone to the mountains” in 1996. Karadzic was hiding until 2007, despite the fact that an international arrest warrant was issued.

Responding to Karadzic’s allegations, Mihajlovic said that he did not have any prejudices regarding ethnicity, accepting his statement that “a Catholic church in Pale’s downtown area remained undestroyed” and that his “hairdresser was a Croat” as an illustration for her statement.

The trial of Karadzic is due to continue on February 9.R.M.