International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

The latest hearing in the case against Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic was held at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Tuesday, when the first defence witness in their retrial for wartime crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia gave testimony behind closed doors.

A Croatian NGO asked the European Court of Human Rights to examine the Zagreb government's refusal to release information about a contract for legal representation for generals Mladen Markac and Ante Gotovina at their Hague Tribunal appeal.

Serge Brammertz. Photo: EPA/EVERT-JAN DANIELS.

More political will and cooperation between former Yugoslav states is needed for the remaining suspects from the 1990s wars to be brought to justice, Hague chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said on Thursday.

One of the most respected journalists in Serbia, Dejan Anastasijevic, a longtime correspondent for Time magazine, Vreme, Tanjug, B92, the BBC and many others, has died in Belgrade after a long illness.

Born in 1962, Anastasijevic reported from the wars in the former Yugoslavia and wrote extensively about war crimes, earning the wrath of the Serbian authorities at the time.

When reaching their final judgement, the judges at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague will remain within the parameters of the appeals filed by the prosecutors and Karadzic's defence.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals said it is investigating claims about the alleged inhumane treatment of Serb war crimes convicts who are serving their sentences in Estonia.

During the meeting Brnabic urged that every effort be made to ensure better treatment of Serbian citizens serving sentences handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Speaking for Tirana, Albania-based broadcaster Ora News, the Swiss jurist also noted that Kosovo "cannot be a state."

Del Ponte explained that Haradinaj has been convicted in the first instance by the Hague war crimes tribunal, while Kosovo does not fulfill the conditions necessary to be a state.

A Zagreb court reduced former Croatian Defence Council officer Marko Radic’s sentence for crimes against humanity because the Croatian legal system does not recognise the concept of a ‘joint criminal enterprise’.

A Dutch investigation into former Bosnian Croat military official Slobodan Praljak’s suicide at the UN war crimes tribunal in 2017 failed to establish how he obtained the poison that he took in the courtroom.