AN UNFAIR TRIAL: PROSECUTION LAYS OUT STRATEGY TO CONVICT KARADZIC
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - September 3, 2008

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

It has been thirteen years since the end of the Bosnian war and prosecutors at The Hague Tribunal still haven't decided what the indictment against former Bosnian-Serb president Radovan Karadžić will look like. However, remarks made by the Prosecution's senior trial attorney, Alan Tieger, at a pre-trial hearing last Friday cast serious doubt on the fairness of the upcoming trial.

Mr. Tieger explained that the Prosecution was going to amend the eight-year-old indictment against Karadžić "in light of both the evolving jurisprudence, evolving procedures, and the adjudicated facts". He said that an amended indictment would likely be submitted to the Tribunal by the end of September.

It follows from Mr. Tieger's remarks that the Prosecution intends to rely on facts adjudicated in other trials as a means to convict Karadžić. The significance of this strategy was not lost on the Accused, Karadžić told the pre-trial judge "I won't agree to adjudicated facts if they have not been proved in these proceedings."

If this Trial Chamber accepts facts adjudicated in other trials as facts, then Karadžić has been convicted before his trial has even begun.

The Tribunal's judgment against former Bosnian-Serb parliament speaker Momčilo Krajišnik says, "The Chamber finds that the Joint Criminal Enterprise of which the Accused was a member consisted of persons ... including, but not limited to, the Accused [and] Radovan Karadžić ... the common objective of the enterprise [was] the permanent removal, by force or other means, of Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat or other non-Serb inhabitants from large areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina through the commission of crimes ... The Chamber finds that the above allegations have been proven ... The Bosnian-Serb leadership wanted to ethnically recompose the territories under its control by expelling and thereby drastically reducing the proportion of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats living there."

As far as the Tribunal is concerned, the findings made in the Krajišnik judgment are adjudicated facts. If they are accepted as such in the Karadžić trial, then a guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion. There can't be any talk of a fair trial if findings from the Krajišnik trial and other trials are accepted as facts by the Karadžić trial chamber. Those findings were made in the context of trial proceedings where Karadžić had no opportunity to present evidence in his defense.

The Tribunal's previous verdicts will place the Trial Chamber under immense pressure to convict Karadžić. The Tribunal has already handed down judgments against several persons, besides Krajišnik, where Karadžić is identified as the ringleader of a Joint Criminal Enterprise to commit genocide and ethnically cleanse Bosnian-Serb territory of Croats and Muslims. A not guilty verdict for Karadžić would undermine convictions handed down in several previous trials at the Tribunal.

The judges appointed to try Karadžić may have an interest in seeing him convicted to protect their findings from earlier trials. Alfons Orie, the first pre-trial Judge in these Karadžić proceedings, was the Presiding Judge in the Krajišnik trial. How anxious would someone in his position be to acquit Karadžić after the things he wrote about him in the Krajišnik judgment?

Even though the Prosecution hasn't decided on the final indictment, Karadžić was expected to go through the pageantry and plead to the old indictment, which the Prosecutor has no intention of using anyway.

Karadzic refused to participate in the farce and said, "I will not plead in line with my standpoint as regards this court." When the pre-trial judge entered not guilty pleas on his behalf he retorted, "I would rather hear you say that at the end of the trial than at the beginning." 

The next hearing will be a status conference scheduled for the 17th of September at 2:15 in the afternoon, a discussion of Karadzic's claim that his life in jeopardy because of an agreement that he made with Richard Holbrooke in 1996 is expected.

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