Mladic’s Defence Appeals over ‘Rights Violation’

The defence filed the appeal on Wednesday, repeating its allegation that Mladic’s right to a fair trial was violated by the fact that legal assistants to the judges who had participated in writing the verdict convicting Radovan Karadzic were now offering the same assistance to the judges in the former Bosnian Serb military chief’s case.

According to the defence, this violates the basic procedural rule that Mladic is innocent until proven guilty at the trial.

At the beginning of July, the trial chamber rejected the defence’s allegation that Mladic’s trial was not fair, pointing out that all decisions, and the verdict, were rendered by exclusively by judges, not by their legal assistants.

In that decision, the judges specified that they received assistance from two legal associates who had offered the same type of assistance in Karadzic’s case, but this did not affect the impartiality of the trial chamber.

In its appeal however, Mladic’s defence said that the trial chamber had failed to respond to its basic allegation that “the presumption of Mladic’s innocence was violated” by transferring court assistants from Karadzic’s trial to the former Bosnian Serb military chief’s case.

“If the Trial Chamber has disregarded his most basic of legal and human rights, he submitted, the trial should not continue and a mistrial should be declared,” defence lawyers Branko Lukic and Miodrag Stojanovic said in the appeal.

A decision on the defence’s appeal will be made by the Tribunal’s appeals chamber.

In March, the Tribunal pronounced a first-instance verdict sentencing Karadzic to 40 years in prison for genocide in Srebrenica, the persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Mladic, the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, is on trial for the same crimes.

The prosecution and defence are due to present their closing statements, which will mark the end of Mladic’s trial, from December 5 to 15.

The defence announced it will appeal against the setting of that date as well, because it believes it has not had enough time to prepare a closing statement due to procedural and technical difficulties that were beyond its control.