Stanisic Denied Provisional Release
Accused will not be able to visit Belgrade to help legal team prepare for upcoming defence.
Stanisic Denied Provisional Release
Accused will not be able to visit Belgrade to help legal team prepare for upcoming defence.
Ex-Bosnian Serb internal affairs minister Mico Stanisic will not be granted provisional release, Hague tribunal judges ruled in a decision released this week.
Stanisic, who is currently standing trial alongside ex-Bosnian Serb security chief Stojan Zupljanin, had requested permission to travel to Belgrade from early February to mid March in order to help his lawyers prepare for the upcoming defence case.
The prosecution, which recently completed its own case, objected to the request, stating that Stanisic had “failed to provide any humanitarian grounds for provisional release”, which has become the practice when a trial is in its later stages.
The judges noted that Stanisic had surrendered to the tribunal after being indicted in 2005 and had always adhered to the conditions of provisional release on previous occasions.
However, they cited an appeals decision from another case which stated that requests for provisional release “at a late stage of the proceedings, and in particular after the close of the prosecution case, will only be granted when serious and sufficiently compelling humanitarian reasons exist”.
The judges stated since no such grounds exist in this instance, they are “required” to reject the request.
In other news this week, the registrar found that Stanisic’s co-accused, Zupljanin, did not have the means to pay for his defence lawyers and granted him full legal aid as a result.
Stanisic and Zupljanin are alleged to have participated in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at the permanent removal of non-Serbs from several municipalities in Bosnia.
They are charged with ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their alleged crimes include persecution, extermination, murder, torture, inhumane acts and deportation as crimes against humanity, in addition to murder, torture and cruel treatment as violations of the laws or customs of war.
Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.
