Chamber Orders Mladic to Testify

The Hague Tribunal accepts Radovan Karadzic’s request to deliver a warrant to Ratko Mladic, obliging him to testify in his defence in January next year.

The Trial Chamber ordered Mladic to appear as Radovan Karadzic’s Defence witness in January next year despite the opposition from his Defence attorneys.

“Mladic is in a unique position to testify about the type of information he forwarded to Karadzic regarding numerous incidents described in the indictment. We therefore consider that there are grounds for inviting him to testify,” said presiding judge O-Gon Kwon.

Karadzic requested Mladic to testify in his defence in order to convey to the judges that “a plan for the persecution of the non-Serb population by the army and the police of Republika Srpska never existed”.  

“In his capacity as Commander of the Main Headquarters of the Republika Srpska Army, Mladic will testify about the fact that the joint criminal enterprise described under the indictment never existed and that he never informed me that captives from Srebrenica were killed,” Karadzic said.

In May this year Mladic responded by saying that he was not able to testify due to his health condition and that, in case he was forced to testify, his right not to incriminate himself would be violated.

The Trial Chamber rejected those remarks, pointing out that they “do not deal with Mladic’s guilt” at Karadzic’s trial.

Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, and Mladic, former Commander of VRS, are on trials separately for genocide in Srebrenica, persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, which reached the scale of genocide in seven municipalities, terror against citizens in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.