Hague Court Revised Rulebook ‘Over Karadzic Case Concerns’

Decision taken by majority of judges

From the top of the UN military vehicle a UN UNPROFOR soldier scans the hillside with his binoculars looking for snipers and other military activity during the siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina, 1994. Photo: EPA/FEHIM DEMIR

On March 20, Karadzic was sentenced at the second instance before the Mechanism to life imprisonment for genocide in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, for crimes against humanity and for violations of the laws and customs of war.

He was found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, of persecution throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, of terror against the local population of Sarajevo and of taking UNPROFOR members hostage. His sentence was also increased from 40 years to life.

Following the verdict, he demanded that it be reconsidered, along with the decision to increase his sentence from 40 years to life. After Judge Carmel Agius rejected this request, Karadzic filed a new appeal, claiming that Judge Antonetti, not court president Agius or the most-experienced judge, Theodor Meron, should decide on his request.

In his request to exempt Agius and Meron from the decision-making process, Karadzic sought that Antonetti decide on his appeal, because he considered the other two biased, as they had previously sentenced his subordinates to life imprisonment in other cases.

Antonetti was previously chosen, as the most experienced judge, to decide on a request for exemption of judges in the case of Ratko Mladic, which he approved, saying that Agius and Meron were biased.

Numerous legal experts and representatives of victims' associations criticised this assertion, while the then Hague court president, Meron, told BIRN BiH that he "could have made a...