THE UNITED Nations war crimes court in The Hague has thrown out a claim by former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic that a secret deal made with a US envoy protects him from prosecution for genocide.
Mr Karadzic asked for his case to be dismissed on the grounds that Richard Holbrooke, Washington’s peace mediator for Bosnia at the end of its 1992 to 1995 war, promised him immunity from prosecution if he withdrew completely from politics.
After being indicted for war crimes and the massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in July 1995, Mr Karadzic disappeared from public view.
He was arrested last year in Belgrade, where he had grown a beard and long hair and was working as a new-age healer.
Mr Holbrooke, now a US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has always denied the existence of the supposed 1996 deal, calling it “no more than another lie from the most evil man in Europe”.
Judge Iain Bonomy of the war crimes court in The Hague wrote in a 30-page verdict that Mr Karadzic and his legal team had failed to prove the existence of the deal, and that any agreement with Mr Holbrooke had not been approved by the UN Security Council (UNSC). “To the contrary, the accused has been the subject of a number of UNSC resolutions, passed after the agreement, demanding his arrest,” the judge said.
“The accused has failed to show that Holbrooke acted with the apparent authority of the UNSC in July 1996 . . . The chamber does not accept the accused’s contention that the tribunal is bound by the agreement.”
Mr Karadzic’s legal adviser, Peter Robinson, said he planned to appeal yesterday’s decision, and he has claimed that 15 witnesses could testify to the existence of the agreement with Mr Holbrooke, including former Bosnian Serb officials and Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt.
His lawyers still intend to meet Mr Bildt, who has denied any knowledge of an immunity deal.
The decision takes the court closer to starting Mr Karadzic’s long-awaited trial for allegedly masterminding Bosnian Serb atrocities throughout Bosnia’s war, including the siege of Sarajevo and the genocide at Srebrenica, which was the worst massacre in Europe since the second World War.
The trial is not expected to start before late September.
Mr Karadzic’s wartime military commander, Ratko Mladic, is still on the run from similar war crimes and genocide charges.
