Karadzic Asks US for Srebrenica Wiretap Transcripts
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Former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic’s defence asked the US government to provide any transcripts it has of intercepted conversations about the violence in Srebrenica in July 1995.
Karadzic’s defence lawyer Peter Robinson asked the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Wednesday to order the US government to hand over any transcripts it has of intercepted and recorded conversations about the violence in Srebrenica in July 1995.
Karadzic believes that the US has information which would enable the former Bosnian Serb political leader to prove that he was wrongly convicted of genocide.
“We are asking the appeals chamber to ask the USA to submit the information or say if it does not possess it,” the defence said in its request.
“This would make it possible for Karadzic to show that, in the relevant period of time, he actually did not know that the captives were in Srebrenica and that they were killed,” it added.
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. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Karadzic appealed against the verdict, but the Hague prosecution also filed an appeal asking for him to be found guilty of genocide in six other Bosnian municipalities and imprisoned for life.
The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals planned to hand down its second-instance verdict in the trial in December, but it was postponed because presiding judge Theodor Meron removed himself from the judging panel after Karadzic’s defence accused him of bias, and a replacement was appointed.
