Karadzic war crimes appeal begins

THE HAGUE: United Nations judges yesterday began hearing the two-day appeal of oncefeared Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, fighting his conviction and 40-year jail term for war crimes and genocide in Bosnia’s bloody 1990s conflict.

Karadzic, 72, was sentenced to four decades behind bars in March 2016 for the bloodshed committed during the Balkan country’s three-year war, which killed 100,000 people and left 2.2 million others homeless.

Once the most powerful Bosnian Serb leader, he became the highest-ranked person to be convicted and sentenced at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, after former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic died while on trial.

But Karadzic’s lawyer Peter Robinson challenged the conviction, saying he did not receive a fair trial as UN judges “presumed him guilty and then constructed a judgment to justify its presumption”.

Karadzic, a former psychiatrist, has denounced his conviction as unjust and appealed on 50 grounds, accusing judges of conducting a “political trial”.

At his verdict, the judges ruled the ex-strongman was “at the apex of political and military structures” of the Bosnian Serb leadership and “at the forefront of developing and promoting its ideologies”.

The aim was “to spread terror among the civilian population”, the judges said, finding Karadzic guilty on 10 counts, including genocide for masterminding the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, deemed the worst bloodshed on European soil since World War 2.

Judges also found him guilty of being behind the bitter 44month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, in which 10,000 civilians died in a relentless campaign of sniping and shelling.

Prosecutors have also challenged the sentencing, saying the trial judges “erred in law and fact”.

Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz listed four grounds of appeal, including that the judges applying an “overly narrow definition of genocidal intent” and “improperly assessing aggravating and mitigating factors” when passing sentence.

He has asked appeals judges to “correct the trial chamber’s errors and increase Karadzic’s sentence to life imprisonment”.