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All four Hague Tribunal war crimes defendants from Republika Srpska who are being held at the UN Detention Unit in Scheveningen will be given money from the Republika Srpska budget to cover their personal expenses, Milorad Kojic, the director of the Republic Centre for the Investigation of War, War Crimes and the Search for the Missing, said on Tuesday.
“A total of 40,000 BAM is available. It will be paid in equal allocations to each of them on a monthly basis until the end of the year,” said Kojic.
Kojic said the first payments could be made next month.
The money will go to Radovan Karadzic, the first president of Republika Srpska, who was jailed for 40 years in prison last month for genocide and other crimes, and to former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, who is still on trial.
The other two men who will receive payments are former Bosnian Serb interior minister Mico Stanisic and former regional security services chief Stojan Zupljanin.
Both the former Bosnian Serb police officials were convicted by the Hague Tribunal in 2013 of a series of war crimes against Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats during the 1990s conflict, included murders, persecution, torture and deportation. Their appeals verdicts are expected to be delivered in June.
Mladic’s lawyer Miodrag Stojanovic said the money was intended to cover the defendants’ expenditures at the canteen, and for telephone bills, clothes and other essentials.
“The money is intended exclusively for the defendants, not the defence teams. The Hague Tribunal pays for the defence,” Stojanovic said.
