Tribunal Rejects Tomasica Evidence Against Karadzic

Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon said the court turned down the request “given the very late stage of the trial and the delay it would cause to the overall completion of the proceedings”.

The prosecution at the trial of Radovan Karadzic finished its evidence hearing in May 2012. It asked to reopen its evidence hearing in order to present forensic evidence about 275 complete and 118 incomplete bodies found in the Tomasica mass grave near Prijedor last year.

The prosecution said this extra evidence would be significant in proving the Bosnian Serb authorities’ “planning and intentions related to attacks on villages in Prijedor municipality and the operation of the camps”.

Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb president, opposed the proposal. As not all the forensic evidence was complete, its introduction as evidence should not be allowed, he said.

Judge Kwon decided that the value of the proposed evidence was indeed “speculative”, as the forensic evidence from Tomasica had not been completed.

He also added that re-opening the case would prompt a request from Karadzic to present other evidence in rejoinder, meaning additional time needed for his preparations, which would result in more than “a minimal amount of additional time to the trial”.

Karadzic is on trial for genocide in Srebrenica and seven other municipalities, one of which is Prijedor, persecution of Bosniaks and Croats, terrorizing Sarajevo citizens and taking UN peacekeepers hostage. His trial started in 2009.