Hague Tribunal Replaces ‘Biased’ Judges in Mladic Case

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, MICT, announced on Wednesday that it had removed three judges from the appeal process due to their alleged partiality, on the request of the defence of the former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, Ratko Mladic.

Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti accepted the defence’s request to remove Theodor Meron, Carmel Agius and Daqun Liu from the proceedings.

Antonetti wrote in his decision that Meron, Agius and Liu “appear biased”, considering that they had previously rendered certain conclusions linked to Mladic in other cases in The Hague.

Antonetti decided on the motion after the MICT president exempted himself from making a decision, because the motion also applied to him.

“The responsibility for making the decision rests with the longest-serving judge considering the fact that I am a subject of the motion and, at the same time, the president of the Mechanism,” Meron said in his exemption decision.

Attorneys Branko Lukic and Dragan Ivetic filed the motion requesting that Meron, Agius and Liu be disqualified from the trial because they were “biased”. In separate motions, they cited parts of judgments written by judges Meron, Agius and Liu, which, according to the defence attorneys, included “unacceptable conclusions about Mladic”.

In respect of Meron, it is mentioned that he chaired the chamber which sentenced Radislav Krstic and Zdravko Tolimir for genocide in Srebrenica and that those verdicts indicated that Mladic “intended to kill Bosnian Muslims”, as well as that he was aware of unlawful activities undertaken by his subordinates.

The attorneys further said that Agius had been a member of the chamber that sentenced Vujadin Popovic, Ljubisa Beara, Drago Nikolic, Radivoje Miletic, Vinko Pandurevic, Ljubomir Borovcanin and Milan Gvero, while Liu took part in the judgment against Vidoje Blagojevic and Dragan Jokic.

In November last year, the Tribunal sentenced Mladic, former commander of the Main Headquarters of the Bosnian Serb army, VRS, to life in prison, pronouncing him guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terror against the population in Sarajevo through long-lasting shelling and sniping, as well as taking UNPROFOR members hostage.

Mladic was acquitted of charges of genocide in six other Bosnian municipalities.

Both the defence and MICT prosecutors filed appeals against the verdict. The final judgment is due to be pronounced next year.

Antonetti, who chaired the first-instance chamber that acquitted Serbian politician Vojislav Seselj of charges, has appointed a new chamber in Mladic’s case, consisting of judges Mparany Mamy Richard Rajohnson, Gberdao Gustave Kam and Elizabeth Ibanda-Nahamya.