WELCOME TO IWPR’S ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE No. 578 Part Two, 21 November,
2008
BRIEFLY NOTED:
LUKIC OUTSIDE CONTACT REVOKED Prosecutors claim
defendant may have intimidated family of witness. By Rachel Irwin in
The Hague
ICJ RULES ON CROATIA CASE Court decides it has authority to
hear genocide case against Serbia. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo
NEW JUDGE ASSIGNED TO KARADZIC TRIAL Patrick Robinson steps down as
presiding judge following tribunal president appointment. By Simon
Jennings in The Hague
**** IWPR RESOURCES
******************************************************************
2008 WINNERS OF THE KURT SCHORK AWARDS ANNOUNCED: http://iwpr.
net/kurtschork
INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE/ICTY PROGRAMME HOME: http://iwpr.
net/icty
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BRIEFLY NOTED
LUKIC OUTSIDE CONTACT REVOKED
Prosecutors claim
defendant may have intimidated family of witness.
By Rachel Irwin in
The Hague
The Hague tribunal has barred Bosnian Serb defendant Milan
Lukic from communicating with anyone save his lawyers for two weeks.
The decision by the deputy registrar followed a request from prosecutor
Dermot Groome, who claimed in a November 18 letter to the registrar
that Lukic may have “called and intimidated the family of a prosecution
witness” from his detention unit in The Hague.
The prosecutor plans to
review Lukic’s phone transcripts; investigate all calls made to the
family members of witnesses; and “seek appropriate measures” from the
trial judges, stated the deputy registrar.
The request comes just a
week after the final prosecution witness, Hamdija Vilic, testified that
Lukic called him in June from his detention unit and offered him
100,000 euro in return for a fake alibi.
Vilic, a Bosniak who lost his
family in a house fire that Lukic is alleged to have started, said he
met with the defendant’s representatives in Bosnia but ultimately
declined the offer.
Lukic is charged with 21 counts of crimes against
humanity and violations of the laws of war – which include murder,
extermination and severe physical and psychological abuses – that
claimed the lives of at least 150 Bosniaks in the eastern Bosnian town
of Visegrad alone. His cousin Sredoje is charged on 13 counts.
The
defence was scheduled to have commenced its case this week, but lawyers
requested more preparation time from the trial judges. The defence of
Sredoje Lukic will now begin on December 1.
Rachel Irwin is an IWPR
reporter in The Hague.
ICJ RULES ON CROATIA CASE
Court decides it
has authority to hear genocide case against Serbia.
By Merdijana
Sadovic in Sarajevo
The International Court of Justice, ICJ, has this
week ruled it has jurisdiction over the case Croatia filed against
Serbia for genocide.
On November 18, the court passed a final and
binding decision, which is not subject to appeal, that it does have
authority to judge in this case.
Croatia launched a lawsuit against
Serbia, then known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FRY, with the
ICJ in 1999, claiming that a campaign of ethnic cleansing during the
four-year war in Croatia yielded "a form of genocide which resulted in
large numbers of Croatian citizens being displaced, killed, tortured,
or illegally detained as well as extensive property destruction".
According to Zagreb, the campaign, which claimed more than 10,000
lives, was directly controlled from Belgrade. About one third of the
victims were civilians – including women, children and the elderly.
But at a preliminary hearing held at the ICJ in May this year, Serbia
argued that this court had no jurisdiction to hear this case. It also
claimed that crimes committed in Croatia during its 1991-95 war did not
amount to genocide.
However, a panel of 17 judges dismissed a Serbian
challenge to the ICJ's competence to hear Croatia's complaint.
Croatia
is the second country from the Balkans to bring a genocide case against
Serbia to the ICJ.
Bosnia filed its own genocide lawsuit against the
country in 1993. In February 2007, ICJ judges acquitted Serbia of
direct responsibility for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, and found it
guilty only of failing to prevent and punish the perpetrators of this
crime.
Serbian authorities responded to ICJ ruling this week, saying
they would counter-sue Croatia for war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
Serbia’s foreign minister Vuk Jeremic told Serbian state television on
November 18 that "Serbia will sue Croatia... and give it an opportunity
to respond to our charges of war crimes and ethnic cleansing" committed
against Serb civilians during the Croatian war.
Serbia claims that
more than 200,000 Serbs fled Croatia, while hundreds died during a 1995
Croatian military offensive, Operation Storm, launched to regain
territory held by rebel Serbs.
Jeremic said he was "sorry" that
Croatia insisted that ICJ should hear its genocide lawsuit, adding that
Serbia and Croatia "should turn to reconciliation... and our European
future”.
Merdijana Sadovic is IWPR’s Hague tribunal programme manager.
NEW JUDGE ASSIGNED TO KARADZIC TRIAL
Patrick Robinson steps down as
presiding judge following tribunal president appointment.
By Simon
Jennings in The Hague
The Hague tribunal’s new president, Judge
Patrick Robinson, who took office this week, has stepped down as
presiding judge in the trial of former Bosnian Serb president, Radovan
Karadzic.
The Jamaican judge has appointed Judge Christoph Flugge of
Germany to the bench in his place but it is currently uncertain which
of the judges will now preside over the case.
The other judges
assigned to Karadzic’s case are Iain Bonomy and Michele Picard. Bonomy
is presiding over pre-trial proceedings which are set to resume n
January.
Robinson will now sit on the tribunal’s appeals chamber, a
shift made under his new role as coordinator of the court’s trials and
judicial chambers.
Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in July this year
after 13 years on the run. Judges are still set to rule on the
prosecution’s request to update the charges against him.
If they grant
the amendments to the indictment, Karadzic will be charged with 11
counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including two counts
of genocide. Prosecutors hope to secure a conviction for the 1995
massacre of nearly 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica, as well as
for acts committed across ten Bosnian municipalities in 1991 and 1992.
In other developments this week, Karadzic asked the new tribunal
president to reverse a decision made by the registrar, Hans Holthuis,
not allow him to talk directly to the press.
On 16 October, Karadzic
requested Holthuis to allow him to meet the journalist, Zvezdana
Vukojevic, from the Dutch publication, Revu. Karadzic reasoned his
request should be granted because “for many years the prosecutors of
this tribunal and others have demonised me in the media without any
opportunity for me to present my side of the story”.
But the request
was denied on the grounds that meeting a member of the press at the UN
Detention Unit where Karadzic is in custody could present a security
risk, as well as the possibility of “sensational reporting” which might
prejudice the trial and the administration of justice.
Karadzic has
asked for the ruling to be reversed claiming that this interpretation
of the tribunal’s detention rules constitutes “an unreasonable
restriction on the right to freedom of expression”.
Simon Jennings is
an IWPR international justice reporter in The Hague.
**** www.iwpr.net
********************************************************************
ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE, which has been running since 1996, details
events and issues at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia, ICTY, in The Hague.
These weekly reports, produced by
IWPR's human rights and media training project, seek to contribute to
regional and international understanding of the war crimes prosecution
process.
The opinions expressed in ICTY - Tribunal Update are those of
the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication
or of IWPR.
ICTY - Tribunal Update is supported by the European
Commission, the Dutch Ministry for Development and Cooperation, the
Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency, the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office, and other funders. IWPR also acknowledges
general support from the Ford Foundation.
ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE:
Editor-in-Chief: Anthony Borden; Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Senior
Editor: John MacLeod; Editor: Caroline Tosh; Project Manager: Merdijana
Sadovic; Translation: Predrag Brebanovic, and others.
IWPR PROJECT
DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT: Executive Director: Anthony Borden; Strategy &
Assessment Director: Alan Davis; Chief Programme Officer: Mike Day.
**** www.iwpr.net
********************************************************************
IWPR is an international network of four organisations which are
governed by boards of senior journalists, peace-building experts,
regional specialists and business professionals.
IWPR builds democracy
at the frontlines of conflict and change through the power of
professional journalism. IWPR programmes provide intensive hands-on
training, extensive reporting and publishing, and ambitious initiatives
to build the capacity of local media. Supporting peace-building,
development and the rule of law, IWPR gives responsible local media a
voice.
IWPR - Africa, P.O. Box 3317, Johannesburg 2121
Tel: +2 711 268
6077
IWPR - Europe, 48 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8LT, UK
Tel: +44
20 7831 1030
IWPR – United States, 1616 H. Street, Washington, DC
20006, United States
Tel: +1 202 449 7663
Stichting IWPR Nederland,
Eisenhowerlaan 77 K, 2517 KK Den Haag, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 70 338
9016
For further details on this project and other information
services and media programmes, go to: www.iwpr.net
ISSN 1477-7940
Copyright © 2008 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting
**** www.iwpr.
net
********************************************************************
If you wish to change your subscription details or unsubscribe please
go to: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p
_______________________________________________________________
Crea in pochi clic il tuo calendario personalizzato
http://tiscali.jetfoto.it/foto-prodotti/calendari-e-auguri/index.html
2008
BRIEFLY NOTED:
LUKIC OUTSIDE CONTACT REVOKED Prosecutors claim
defendant may have intimidated family of witness. By Rachel Irwin in
The Hague
ICJ RULES ON CROATIA CASE Court decides it has authority to
hear genocide case against Serbia. By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo
NEW JUDGE ASSIGNED TO KARADZIC TRIAL Patrick Robinson steps down as
presiding judge following tribunal president appointment. By Simon
Jennings in The Hague
**** IWPR RESOURCES
******************************************************************
2008 WINNERS OF THE KURT SCHORK AWARDS ANNOUNCED: http://iwpr.
net/kurtschork
INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE/ICTY PROGRAMME HOME: http://iwpr.
net/icty
IWPR COMMENT: http://iwpr.net/comment
**** www.iwpr.net
********************************************************************
TRIBUNAL UPDATE RSS: http://www.iwpr.net/en/tri/rss.xml
RECEIVE FROM
IWPR: Readers are urged to subscribe to IWPR's full range of free
electronic publications at: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?
apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p
GIVE TO IWPR: IWPR is wholly dependent upon
grants and donations. For more information about how you can support
IWPR go to: http://www.iwpr.net/donate.html
**** www.iwpr.net
********************************************************************
BRIEFLY NOTED
LUKIC OUTSIDE CONTACT REVOKED
Prosecutors claim
defendant may have intimidated family of witness.
By Rachel Irwin in
The Hague
The Hague tribunal has barred Bosnian Serb defendant Milan
Lukic from communicating with anyone save his lawyers for two weeks.
The decision by the deputy registrar followed a request from prosecutor
Dermot Groome, who claimed in a November 18 letter to the registrar
that Lukic may have “called and intimidated the family of a prosecution
witness” from his detention unit in The Hague.
The prosecutor plans to
review Lukic’s phone transcripts; investigate all calls made to the
family members of witnesses; and “seek appropriate measures” from the
trial judges, stated the deputy registrar.
The request comes just a
week after the final prosecution witness, Hamdija Vilic, testified that
Lukic called him in June from his detention unit and offered him
100,000 euro in return for a fake alibi.
Vilic, a Bosniak who lost his
family in a house fire that Lukic is alleged to have started, said he
met with the defendant’s representatives in Bosnia but ultimately
declined the offer.
Lukic is charged with 21 counts of crimes against
humanity and violations of the laws of war – which include murder,
extermination and severe physical and psychological abuses – that
claimed the lives of at least 150 Bosniaks in the eastern Bosnian town
of Visegrad alone. His cousin Sredoje is charged on 13 counts.
The
defence was scheduled to have commenced its case this week, but lawyers
requested more preparation time from the trial judges. The defence of
Sredoje Lukic will now begin on December 1.
Rachel Irwin is an IWPR
reporter in The Hague.
ICJ RULES ON CROATIA CASE
Court decides it
has authority to hear genocide case against Serbia.
By Merdijana
Sadovic in Sarajevo
The International Court of Justice, ICJ, has this
week ruled it has jurisdiction over the case Croatia filed against
Serbia for genocide.
On November 18, the court passed a final and
binding decision, which is not subject to appeal, that it does have
authority to judge in this case.
Croatia launched a lawsuit against
Serbia, then known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FRY, with the
ICJ in 1999, claiming that a campaign of ethnic cleansing during the
four-year war in Croatia yielded "a form of genocide which resulted in
large numbers of Croatian citizens being displaced, killed, tortured,
or illegally detained as well as extensive property destruction".
According to Zagreb, the campaign, which claimed more than 10,000
lives, was directly controlled from Belgrade. About one third of the
victims were civilians – including women, children and the elderly.
But at a preliminary hearing held at the ICJ in May this year, Serbia
argued that this court had no jurisdiction to hear this case. It also
claimed that crimes committed in Croatia during its 1991-95 war did not
amount to genocide.
However, a panel of 17 judges dismissed a Serbian
challenge to the ICJ's competence to hear Croatia's complaint.
Croatia
is the second country from the Balkans to bring a genocide case against
Serbia to the ICJ.
Bosnia filed its own genocide lawsuit against the
country in 1993. In February 2007, ICJ judges acquitted Serbia of
direct responsibility for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, and found it
guilty only of failing to prevent and punish the perpetrators of this
crime.
Serbian authorities responded to ICJ ruling this week, saying
they would counter-sue Croatia for war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
Serbia’s foreign minister Vuk Jeremic told Serbian state television on
November 18 that "Serbia will sue Croatia... and give it an opportunity
to respond to our charges of war crimes and ethnic cleansing" committed
against Serb civilians during the Croatian war.
Serbia claims that
more than 200,000 Serbs fled Croatia, while hundreds died during a 1995
Croatian military offensive, Operation Storm, launched to regain
territory held by rebel Serbs.
Jeremic said he was "sorry" that
Croatia insisted that ICJ should hear its genocide lawsuit, adding that
Serbia and Croatia "should turn to reconciliation... and our European
future”.
Merdijana Sadovic is IWPR’s Hague tribunal programme manager.
NEW JUDGE ASSIGNED TO KARADZIC TRIAL
Patrick Robinson steps down as
presiding judge following tribunal president appointment.
By Simon
Jennings in The Hague
The Hague tribunal’s new president, Judge
Patrick Robinson, who took office this week, has stepped down as
presiding judge in the trial of former Bosnian Serb president, Radovan
Karadzic.
The Jamaican judge has appointed Judge Christoph Flugge of
Germany to the bench in his place but it is currently uncertain which
of the judges will now preside over the case.
The other judges
assigned to Karadzic’s case are Iain Bonomy and Michele Picard. Bonomy
is presiding over pre-trial proceedings which are set to resume n
January.
Robinson will now sit on the tribunal’s appeals chamber, a
shift made under his new role as coordinator of the court’s trials and
judicial chambers.
Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in July this year
after 13 years on the run. Judges are still set to rule on the
prosecution’s request to update the charges against him.
If they grant
the amendments to the indictment, Karadzic will be charged with 11
counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including two counts
of genocide. Prosecutors hope to secure a conviction for the 1995
massacre of nearly 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica, as well as
for acts committed across ten Bosnian municipalities in 1991 and 1992.
In other developments this week, Karadzic asked the new tribunal
president to reverse a decision made by the registrar, Hans Holthuis,
not allow him to talk directly to the press.
On 16 October, Karadzic
requested Holthuis to allow him to meet the journalist, Zvezdana
Vukojevic, from the Dutch publication, Revu. Karadzic reasoned his
request should be granted because “for many years the prosecutors of
this tribunal and others have demonised me in the media without any
opportunity for me to present my side of the story”.
But the request
was denied on the grounds that meeting a member of the press at the UN
Detention Unit where Karadzic is in custody could present a security
risk, as well as the possibility of “sensational reporting” which might
prejudice the trial and the administration of justice.
Karadzic has
asked for the ruling to be reversed claiming that this interpretation
of the tribunal’s detention rules constitutes “an unreasonable
restriction on the right to freedom of expression”.
Simon Jennings is
an IWPR international justice reporter in The Hague.
**** www.iwpr.net
********************************************************************
ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE, which has been running since 1996, details
events and issues at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia, ICTY, in The Hague.
These weekly reports, produced by
IWPR's human rights and media training project, seek to contribute to
regional and international understanding of the war crimes prosecution
process.
The opinions expressed in ICTY - Tribunal Update are those of
the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication
or of IWPR.
ICTY - Tribunal Update is supported by the European
Commission, the Dutch Ministry for Development and Cooperation, the
Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency, the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office, and other funders. IWPR also acknowledges
general support from the Ford Foundation.
ICTY - TRIBUNAL UPDATE:
Editor-in-Chief: Anthony Borden; Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Senior
Editor: John MacLeod; Editor: Caroline Tosh; Project Manager: Merdijana
Sadovic; Translation: Predrag Brebanovic, and others.
IWPR PROJECT
DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT: Executive Director: Anthony Borden; Strategy &
Assessment Director: Alan Davis; Chief Programme Officer: Mike Day.
**** www.iwpr.net
********************************************************************
IWPR is an international network of four organisations which are
governed by boards of senior journalists, peace-building experts,
regional specialists and business professionals.
IWPR builds democracy
at the frontlines of conflict and change through the power of
professional journalism. IWPR programmes provide intensive hands-on
training, extensive reporting and publishing, and ambitious initiatives
to build the capacity of local media. Supporting peace-building,
development and the rule of law, IWPR gives responsible local media a
voice.
IWPR - Africa, P.O. Box 3317, Johannesburg 2121
Tel: +2 711 268
6077
IWPR - Europe, 48 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8LT, UK
Tel: +44
20 7831 1030
IWPR – United States, 1616 H. Street, Washington, DC
20006, United States
Tel: +1 202 449 7663
Stichting IWPR Nederland,
Eisenhowerlaan 77 K, 2517 KK Den Haag, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 70 338
9016
For further details on this project and other information
services and media programmes, go to: www.iwpr.net
ISSN 1477-7940
Copyright © 2008 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting
**** www.iwpr.
net
********************************************************************
If you wish to change your subscription details or unsubscribe please
go to: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p
_______________________________________________________________
Crea in pochi clic il tuo calendario personalizzato
http://tiscali.jetfoto.it/foto-prodotti/calendari-e-auguri/index.html