Prosecutors Seek Mladic Indictment Amendment
They want it changed to allow trials of Karadzic and Mladic to be joined if the latter is arrested soon.
Prosecutors Seek Mladic Indictment Amendment
They want it changed to allow trials of Karadzic and Mladic to be joined if the latter is arrested soon.
Prosecutors at the Hague tribunal this week filed a motion to amend the indictment against Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who for years has evaded arrest and is believed to still be hiding in Serbia.
The motion was filed confidentially on May 10, but announced publicly on May 13 while Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz was meeting officials in Belgrade.
Serbian media quoted him telling a news conference there was “no alternative” to arresting both Mladic and the other fugitive still at large, Goran Hadzic, who is accused of committing crimes against non-Serbs in Croatia.
Mladic was commander of the main staff of the Bosnian Serb army from 1992 until 1996. He is accused of planning and carrying out some of the worst crimes of the Bosnian war, including the 44-month sniping and shelling campaign on Sarajevo, as well as the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which some 8,000 men and boys were murdered.
Radovan Karadzic, who was president of the self-declared Republika Srpska at the same time, is currently standing trial for those crimes.
In addition, the indictment against Karadzic alleges that he was responsible for crimes of genocide, persecution, extermination, murder and forcible transfer which "contributed to achieving the objective of the permanent removal of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb-claimed territory”. Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in July 2008 after 13 years on the run.
The indictment against Mladic was last amended in October 2002, and prosecutors now seek to align it more closely with Karadzic’s. Prosecutors say the indictment should be amended in such a way that would allow the cases to be joined if Mladic is “arrested in a reasonable amount of time”.
The counts against Mladic - for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity - have been reduced to 11 from 15, the same number as in Karadzic’s indictment. This week’s motion said the proposed changes are intended to “restructure and reduce” the number of counts, as well as to provide more detailed descriptions of the alleged crimes.
Mladic is still charged with the massacre at Srebrenica, the sniping and shelling of Sarajevo, the taking of United Nations hostages, as well as crimes committed in 23 municipalities around Bosnia.
Six municipalities in the 2002 indictment have been replaced with six others that have already been dealt with in previous trials.
The one count of genocide in the previous indictment has been split into two – one deals specifically with the Srebrenica massacre and the other covers crime committed during 1992.
In a statement released in conjunction with the proposal to change the indictment, the prosecutor’s office urged “Serbia and the international community to take all necessary measures to secure his arrest” and added it was “long overdue”.
The proposal will now go before a judge.
Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.
