Peter Robinson

Radovan Karadzic's lawyer Peter Robinson told BIRN on Friday that the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague has not agreed to the wartime Bosnian Serb political leader's demand to serve his sentence in a country other than Britain, where he feels his life could be in danger.

Former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic's defence has submitted a challenge to the decision on Tuesday by the UN court in The Hague to transfer him to a prison in Britain to serve his life sentence for genocide and other wartime crimes, claiming he could become the target for a potentially deadly attack by other prisoners.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, sentenced to life for war crimes and genocide, will serve his sentence in a UK prison, the British government announced on Wednesday. Karadzic, 75, is one of the chief architects of the slaughter and devastation of Bosnia's 1992-95 war, AP recalls.

Radovan Karadzic's lawyer Peter Robinson told BIRN that the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals decided earlier this month to temporarily allow UN Detention Unit prisoners to make video calls to immediate relatives after the former Bosnian Serb political leader appealed to the UN court.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals on Wednesday denied Radovan Karadzic's motion for an appeal chamber to be appointed at the Hague court to decide on his request to review a previous decision that rejected his appeal against the final verdict in his trial sentencing him to life in prison.

Radovan Karadzic in the courtroom in The Hague in March 2016. Photo: EPA/ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN/POOL.

The UN's war crimes court has yet to decide here the former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic will be sent to serve his life sentence, BIRN has learned.

First President of the Republic of Srpska, Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, who awaits to be transferred to other prison to serve life sentence, asked the President of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague to allow him to use an video link to talk to his family from prison.

Radovan Karadzic's lawyer Peter Robinson said on Monday that the decision not to allow inmates at the United Nations Detention Unit in the Netherlands was wrong because it prevented his client, a long-term detainee, from communicating with his family.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals has so far not taken any action to sanction Radovan Karadzic after he addressed a public discussion in Montenegro over the telephone from the UN Detention Unit in the Netherlands, his lawyer Peter Robinson told BIRN on Monday.

The decision to sentence Radovan Karadzic to life in imprison is "appropriate in the interest of justice," Turkey's foreign minister said on March 20.