Hague Prosecutors Demand Life Sentence for Karadzic

Prosecutors told the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals on the second day of appeals hearings in the Radovan Karadzic case on Tuesday that the former Bosnian Serb political leader’s sentence should be increased from 40 years to life.

Prosecutor Katrina Gustafson told the appeals judges that Karadzic had “abused his immense power to spill the blood of innocent civilians”.

“Justice requires that he receive the highest possible sentence, a life sentence,” she said.

Gustafson argued that Karadzic had threatened non-Serbs in Bosnia with “extinction and annihilation”.

“He set the stage for a criminal campaign of a genocidal nature,” she said.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found Karadzic guilty in March 2016 of genocide in Srebrenica, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

At the first day of the appeals hearings on Monday, Karadzic argued that his conviction should be overturned because his trial was unjust.

But the prosecutors said that his appeal should be rejected in its entirety.

The prosecution is also asking for him to him to be further convicted of genocide in seven more Bosnian municipalities in 1992.

Prosecutor Laurel Baig told the court that it had been proved that Serb forces under Karadzic’s supreme command committed “the largest mass murder since World War Two” – the killings of thousands of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in July 1995.

Baig quoted the verdict, which said the Bosnian Serb Army and police shot “at least 5,115” Bosniaks after the fall of Srebrenica.

“Karadzic knew about that plan, he joined it and actively participated in its execution,” the prosecutor said.

A third prosecutor, Barbara Goy, said the Bosnian Serb Army under Karadzic’s supreme command targeted Sarajevo with a shelling and sniping campaign, unselectively and disproportionately for three and a half years, killing and injuring “10,000 civilians”.

Besides the division of the city, which was one of the strategic goals of the Bosnian leadership, Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic used the attacks on Sarajevo as “means of exerting pressure on Muslims and the international community to accept Serb requests”, Goy insisted.

Baig said it was “irrelevant” whether or not the Bosnian Army “provoked” Serb forces to open fire at the city, arguing what was important was whether the response was in line with the international humanitarian law.

“And it was not, because it was either disproportionate or directly targeted against civilians,” Baig said.

Goy argued that despite what the defence claimed, Karadzic was correctly found guilty of responsibility for an explosion at Sarajevo’s Markale market place that killed 67 civilians and wounded more than 140 more on February 5, 1994.

She said it was determined in the verdict that the shell hit the market from the direction of a known Bosnian Serb Army position, from which “between 30,000 and 40,000 projectiles” were fired on the city during the war.

The prosecutors also rejected Karadzic’s claim that he did not receive a fair trial.

“Karadzic was rightfully sentenced as a protagonist of four joint criminal enterprises, he received a fair trial and failed to prove the existence of any legal irregularities or factual errors in the verdict,” Goy said.

The final judgment in the case is expected by December.