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Karadzic filed a motion on Thursday to the judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, where he’s on trial for war crimes, requesting the admission of one of the confidential diplomatic cables as evidence, and asked the United States to provide him with the other.
The first cable, from Ivor Roberts, a former British ambassador to Serbia, dates from 1996 and concerns “Dr. Karadzic’s involvement and knowledge of the executions after the fall of Srebrenica”, the motion said.
Britain has asked for details of the confidential ducument not to be made public, it added.
Karadzic explained in the motion that he only received the document for the first time in August this year, after the defence closed its case, because the prosecution failed to disclose it.
“Therefore, the fact that re-opening of the case is required to admit the cable at this stage cannot be held against Dr. Karadzic,” the motion said.
Karadzic also asked Washington to give him a confidential cable from the US ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmerman, dating from May 1992.
Karadzic said that the cable could help him convince the court “that I was not part of any joint criminal enterprise to destroy Bosnian Muslims as a group or to expel them”.
Karadzic said that he learned about this cable only this month, after he read about it in a new biography by Robert Donia, ‘Radovan Karadzic: Architect of the Bosnian Genocide’.
Karadzic is accused of genocide in Srebrenica and several other Bosnian municipalities, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout the country, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
His defence finished presenting its case at the beginning of the year, and the verdict is expected in the second half of 2015.
