Karadžic Appeal Procedure (March 20, 2019)

On March 24, 2016, the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICTY) found Radovan Karadžic guilty of genocide crimes in Srebrenica, of war crimes and crimes against humanity. For his crimes during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (from 1992 to 1995), he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He lodged an appeal, accusing the judges of the ICTY of a "political trial" against him. Now, the appeals court in The Hague will announce its judgement in The Hague on March 20, 2019.

"Radovan Karadžic has brought us and our compatriots death, expulsion, suffering, and misery. Those who are responsible for dividing our country, for genocide crimes, ethnic cleansing, and mass rape, must not go unpunished," stated Nura Begovic, survivor of the Srebrenica massacre, with regard to the expected verdict against the Bosnian Serb leader. "The international community must not let genocide crimes go unpunished. Otherwise, the bloodshed will continue," she warned. Karadžic and his murderous ideology are still of significant importance for right-wing extremists: Brenton Tarrant, who recently committed a terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, praised Karadzic and his ideas in his Manifesto.

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) and the survivors of these serious crimes expect the perpetrators to be prosecuted. The court must also classify the crimes in other parts of Bosnia as genocide crimes – including the concentration camps in Prijedor, the notorious women's camp in Foca, and the mass executions in Bratunac and Zvornik. If these crimes are not recognized as such, there will be no justice and no lasting peace in the Western Balkans.

From 1992 to 1995, the Miloševic regime from Serbia and Karadžic’s troops had inflicted war and genocide on the internationally recognized and sovereign state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the mass expulsions, they established the so-called "Republika Srpska" on half of the territory. More than 20,000 Bosnian women became victims of mass rape, and the Serbian troops built more than 100 concentration and rape camps. More than 100,000 Bosnians were killed, and around 500,000 more were starved or shot in the so-called UN protection zones. Karadži? is personally responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica, in which at least 8,372 Bosniak (Muslim) boys and men were murdered. The Serbian bombardment of Sarajevo claimed 11,000 dead, including 1,500 children. Around 1,200 mosques and medresas as well as more than 500 Catholic churches and community centers were systematically destroyed.

In the case of the former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti had upheld the defense's request to exclude three judges from the appeal procedure for alleged bias. After Karadžic filed this claim, the judges decided to quit so as not to prolong the proceedings. Now, it is to be feared that the newly appointed judges did not have enough time to become familiar with details of the case to come to a just decision.

The appeal process was the responsibility of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), which continued the work of the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, whose mandate expired in 2013. The verdict will be announced at 2:00 pm in the Courtroom I, Churchillplain, 2517 JW NL-The Hague) of the International Residual Mechanism.

Header image: STP/2016