15 Oct 2010 / 08:41
Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has asked the Hague Tribunal to issue a binding order requesting that the Bosnian government submit a number of documents relevant to his defence.
Dragana Erjavec
The indictee said the military documents were necessary for the trial, which is being held before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Explaining his request, Karadzic said that the Ministry of Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina had been asked several times to provide copies of military documents pertaining to the illegal trade and import of weapons by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, in Tuzla in February and March 1995, as well as documents about the Laste and Bosna special combat units with the ABiH. “Members of the Laste Unit killed Serbs, Muslims and Croats in Sarajevo during the course of the war. Data available to us suggest that members of the combat unit opened fire and carried bombs in Sarajevo, but Serbs were blamed for the crimes the Unit committed,” Karadzic said.
He added that he believed the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina was hiding the documents as it did not want to submit them to his Defence. Miranda Sidran Kamidaliv, the ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the Hague, who attended the status conference, said that it was in Bosnia’s interest to cooperate with the Tribunal, adding it would submit all documents which had been found so far, as it had done in the past. “There is no reason why Bosnia and Herzegovina would not cooperate with the Tribunal. We consider that we have done everything in our power to submit the documents we have found so far.
"I would like to stress that Karadzic’s Defence should provide as many specific details as possible when asking for documents, thus speeding up the process of locating the required documents,” Sidran Kamisalic said. The Trial Chamber will render its decision on the request for a binding order at a later stage. The Hague Prosecution has charged Karadzic, the former President of Republika Srpska, with genocide committed in Srebrenica and ten other Bosnian municipalities, as well as the campaign of “sniping and shelling of Sarajevo” committed from 1992 to 1995, among other crimes. The examination of Bogdan Vidovic, former crime technician with the Safety Services Center in Sarajevo, began at this hearing.
The witness testified under face alteration measures. He said he was involved in investigations into sniping and shelling incidents that took place in Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995. “Most of my experiences refer to the investigations into the sniping of trams in 1994 and 1995. We undertook classical crime scene inspections in order to determine the direction from where each bullet came. I consider that I performed my tasks in a professional manner. I think the reports do not contain any disputable allegations,” Vidovic said. The trial is due to continue on October 18, while the cross-examination of this witness will begin on October 20.
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