Karadzic: Indictment Withdrawal Motion

Radovan Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, has filed a motion seeking the withdrawal of the indictment against him due to “lack of jurisdiction”.

Karadzic’s legal advisor Peter Robinson presented the motion to journalists who gathered in front of the Tribunal building, claiming that the wartime President of Republika Srpska was not allowed to communicate with the media, while the ICTY “refuses to make its facilities available to the defence”.

Robinson presented the Tribunal with 140 pages of documentation through which he has sought to prove the existence of a non-arrest agreement he says was concluded between Karadzic and the former US Special Envoy for the Balkans Richard Holbrooke in 1996.

According to the agreement, which was not signed by Holbrooke, Karadzic was supposed to withdraw from public and political life until the Dayton Peace Accords were fully implemented. In turn he was promised that he would not be tried before the Hague Tribunal.

“Dr Karadzic is willing to testify and to be cross-examined. He is willing to bring witnesses who will confirm the existence of this agreement,” Karadzic’s motion reads.

Karadzic proposed that the following people be examined as witnesses of the agreement: Momcilo Krajisnik, former President of the Republika Srpska Assembly, who was sentenced by the Hague Tribunal to 20 years’ imprisonment for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Aleksa Buha, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RS, who allegedly “could confirm that Holbrooke clearly stated that Karadzic would not be tried by the Hague, but he did not want to put this in writing for political reasons”.

Among other things, Karadzic referred to a report made by an academics’ initiative, led by Professor Charles Ingrao, who claim that there was an unsigned agreement. See http://www.bim.ba/en/127/10/12280/

“What we have learned from three high-ranking officials of the State Department who had direct information about Holbrooke’s activities was that the Ambassador had assured Karadzic that he would not be arrested,” a book published this year reads. The book contains a number of academic articles concerning the fall of Yugoslavia.

The motion mentions the testimony of Gojko Klickovic, who is charged before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina with war crimes committed in Bosanska Krupa during the course of 1992.

“I was involved in the negotiations concerning the agreement on Karadzic’s withdrawal from political life. At that time there was an implied agreement not to speak about it in public,” Klickovic said in April this year. See http://www.bim.ba/en/161/10/18026/.

Klickovic was the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska and wartime Commander of the Crisis Committee and President of the Presidency of the Serbian municipality of Bosanska Krupa.

The Tribunal’s Chamber rendered a decision that any immunity for genocide and war crimes would be irrelevant, from the point of view of international law.

Karadzic alleges that he does not require immunity on the basis of his function as the RS President, but rather on the basis of “a special cooperation agreement”.

“Dr Karadzic considers that the Trial Chamber arrived at a wrong conclusion. According to real or alleged authority doctrine, the agreement with Holbrooke is binding for the UN Security Council and its bodies, including the ICTY,” Karadzic’s motion argues.

Attached to the motion was Karadzic’s statement and statements given by the proposed witnesses, including Krajisnik and Buha, as well as correspondence with Biljana Plavsic, former RS President. Plavsic was sentenced to eleven years’ imprisonment. She has refused to meet Karadzic’s advisor.

There is also written confirmation of the existence of the agreement provided by his wife Ljiljana and daughter Sonja.

Karadzic is indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and violation of the laws and customs of war committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. After having been on the run for more than ten years, he was arrested in Serbia in July 2008.