The Hague Prepares for Karadzic’s Extradition
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The Hague Tribunal and Prosecution have still not announced the names of the judges and prosecutors, who will be involved in the Radovan Karadzic case. Additional data will be available only after his arrival at The Hague, when he is housed in the Detention Unit.
“The Court President has still not appointed a pre-trial judge in Karadzic’s case. He will not be able to do that until Karadzic has arrived at the Detention Unit. Trial Chamber One shall be responsible for the first instance trial, but it is still not known which three judges will constitute the Chamber,” Nerma Jelacic, the spokeswoman for the Tribunal, said.
Radovan Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, RS, who is charged with genocide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is due to appear before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, by the end of this week. He was arrested in Belgrade on July 21 this year, after having been on the run for 13 years.
Under the ICTY regulations, Karadzic is due to enter his plea no later than 30 days after his first appearance before a competent judge or Trial Chamber.
Olga Kavran, The Hague Prosecution spokeswoman said the Prosecution has still not appointed the prosecutor, who will be in charge of the Radovan Karadzic case.
Kavran claims that the Prosecution has still not decided as to whether it would amend the existing indictment in order to align it with the evidence collected over the past few years.
The indictment against Radovan Karadzic was last amended in 2000. Among other things, the indictment charges the former member of the Supreme Command of the RS armed forces with genocide and crimes committed in all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in particular in Sarajevo and Srebrenica, in the period from 1992 to 1995.
The last prosecutor, who worked on Radovan Karadzic’s case, was former Chief ICTY Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, whose term expired in 2007. She joined the two original indictments from 1995, which contained 36 counts, into a single 11-count indictment.
