Radovan Karadzic ‘Optimistic’ as Trial Nears End

Six years after fugitive war crimes suspect Karadzic was finally detained in Serbia and sent to stand trial in one of the Hague Tribunal’s most high-profile cases, closing arguments will begin at the UN-backed court on Monday with the prosecution laying out its justification for a conviction.

The wartime Bosnian Serb president’s legal adviser, Peter Robinson, told BIRN that Karadzic remained hopeful of a not-guilty verdict.

“What he expects, he’s optimistic, he says if this is a real court, he’ll be acquitted, however, he’s not sure this is a real court under his definition so he might not be that optimistic about the outcome,” he said.

Karadzic is charged with masterminding genocide in Srebrenica in 1995 and in seven Bosnian municipalities in 1992, the persecution of non-Serbs, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Robinson said that preparing for the closing briefs after the five years of the trial was a daunting task which both he and Karadzic were looking forward to finishing.

“Karadzic has been working very hard during these last five years. Frankly, I think he’s ready to have the trial over,” Robinson said.

The former Bosnian Serb leader, who worked as a psychiatrist and wrote several volumes of poetry before he went into politics in the 1980s, is keen to return to writing after the trial is over, his legal adviser explained.

“He’s looking forward to having some literature-related activity instead of legal-related activity. He told me that the legal process sucked all the creativity out of him, he’s looking forward to doing creative writing,” Robinson said.

Despite the fact that many people in Bosnia and Herzegovina are eagerly awaiting the court’s decision about the charges that Karadzic was responsible for genocide in 1992 as well as in Srebrenica in 1995, Robinson does not think that these counts in the indictment will take up much of the closing arguments.

“This issue has been extensively discussed at the end of the prosecution case, when we asked for a judgment of acquittal; we got it, and then it was removed by the appeals chamber, so it will not be especially discussed, and now the only thing left to debate what was the effect of the appeals chamber decision and what additional evidence came out of the defence case,” he said.

Bosnian war victims’ groups will follow the closing arguments closely.

Sudbin Music, the secretary of the Union of Former Camp Detainees ‘Prijedor 92’, which represents prisoners held in the Prijedor municipality, where Karadic is charged with genocide in 1992, said that no verdict could relieve the suffering of the victims.

“Even if Karadzic is found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt of genocide in Prijedor, that word would be the only satisfaction for the victims,” said Music.

“I hope that [a guilty verdict for genocide in Prijedor] could encourage and speed up the memorialisation processes, so that at least some of us, the survivors, can live to see some of the places of terror become places of remembrance for the horrors we endured in the summer of 1992,” he added.

Sinan Alic, the president of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation association, said meanwhile that it was vital for the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina to have access to objective and comprehensive reports about the closing arguments in the Karadzic case – but judging by the coverage of the trial so far, this was unlikely to happen.

“Continual reporting about each hearing, each count of the indictment and each municipality do not exist. I suspect this will also be true of the closing arguments. We will only see segments reported, some small spicy details,” Alic said.

According to Robinson, both the Hague prosecutors and Karadzic have been given ten hours for their closing arguments, during which time they will discuss all the counts in the indictment.

After the closing arguments, the fate of the man who led the Bosnian Serbs during the war years will finally be decided whe