24 Sep Karadzic Prosecutors to Trial Chamber: “No, Thanks.” (Updated)
Seemingly more interested in placating victims groups than the judges who will determine Dr. Karadzic’s guilt or innocence, prosecutors have refused to trim their monstrous and completely unworkable indictment:
In written submissions released by the tribunal Tuesday, prosecutors say further cutting down their 11-count indictment against Karadzic to squeeze it into a year would prevent them presenting evidence encompassing all his alleged crimes.
“The prosecution cannot … complete its case within a calendar year without sacrificing a core component of its case,” prosecutors warned.
[snip]
Earlier this month, the judge steering Karadzic’s case toward trial urged prosecutors to trim the indictment so they can present all their evidence in a year.
Judge O-Gon Kwon said the trial should last three years at the most once Karadzic had called defense witnesses and judges have considered verdicts.
Judges are under pressure from the United Nations to finish all trials as soon as possible and close down the court, which the Security Council set up in 1993.
But a logjam of cases in its three courtrooms means that Karadzic’s trial will likely sit for only three half days each week. There are 23 suspects on trial in eight different cases as well as six cases featuring 14 suspects at appeal.
Prosecutors said cutting their case “to offset scheduling constraints” would rein in their ability to present all three key elements of their case — the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats from scores of towns and villages, the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 murder of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica — Europe’s worst massacre since World War II.
“The only way the prosecution could effect such a dramatic reduction of its already streamlined case would be to allow critical allegations against Karadzic to remain unadjudicated,” they said.
Prosecutors already have trimmed back the number of crime sites included in the indictment, but said they still need more than 250 hours to present all their evidence and witnesses.
Frankly, as one Dr. Karadzic’s legal advisors, I’m delighted by this latest turn of events. The Trial Chamber has already evidenced more than enough hostility toward Dr. Karadzic’s legal arguments; perhaps this will be the wake-up call the Chamber needs to realize that the prosecution has very little interest in providing Dr. Karadzic with a fair trial and does not particularly care about the significant constraints under which the Tribunal is currently operating.
UPDATE: Simon Jennings, an excellent reporter for IWPR, has a new article examining the “stand-off” — his words — between the prosecution and the judges. It adds a great deal of additional detail to the article quoted above. I was particularly struck by a comment made by Paul Troop, who has defended cases at the ICTY: “Judges will not want to start this trial on what they see as a negative note in terms of the perspective of the victims.” We should all hope he is wrong — the obligation of the judges is to ensure that Dr. Karadzic receives a fair trial and that the prosecution presents a case that is consistent with the Tribunal’s rapidly-dwindling time and resources. Nothing more. Representing the victims is the prosecution’s job.
I believe a tear has just crystallized in my eye…
Meh, those victims groups.
Instead of “exerting political pressure” they should write a letter of apology for surviving the rape and war crimes. They should apologize to Karadzic for being abundant during the war thus creating this monstrous and completely unworkable indictment. They should also apologize for being alive, unlike their families, since there would not be a reason to appease anyone if they perished.
Some should demand to be continuously called victims groups since calling them by their true name “union of concentration camp survivors” does not help in further humanizing “Dr. Karadzic”.
I wish these ballsy prosecutors would just lower their moral standards, indict him with a lesser crime, and get this over with quickly because this is just too much work for the Tribunal. Who wants to go through another four-year circus as if they hadn’t learned anything from the Milosevic trial. Europe’s worst massacre since World War II? Snuh, let’s be fair and minimize that.
Could Amel or someone else please explain how the victims benefit by a long and drawn-out trial, addressing not only the core crimes of Srebrenica and Sarajevo but every other instance of ethnic cleansing? Will this bring back loved ones? Will this entitle the victims to reparations? Will it improve the current state of Bosnia? Perhaps it is not sufficient to merely indict Karadzic of every crime that happened in Bosnia. Perhaps each victim or relative of victim or relative or relative of relative of victim should also be entitled to question Karadzic or better yet spit on him. I am being hyperbolic here, of course, but it seems to me that international criminal law should be primarily focused with punishing the guilty, not vindicating a particular narrative or seeking to redress every crime that was done to a particular person. Part of the problem with the Milosevic trial is that the prosecution was seeking to argue a certain view of history i.e. that Milosevic had a master plan to dominate all non-Serbian ethnic groups as evidenced by revoking Kosovo’s autonomy and alike. Thus we were treated to the absurd spectacle of former Communist colleagues arguing as to events in… Read more »