News in English     | 05.09.2018. 14:44 |

Hague Tribunal replaces 'biased' judges in Ratko Mladić case

FENA Press release

THE HAGUE/SARAJEVO, September 5 (FENA) - The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, MICT has agreed to remove three judges from the appellate procedure in the case of the former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladić.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, MICT, announced on Wednesday that it had removed three judges from the appeal process due to their alleged partiality, on the request of the defense of the former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, Ratko Mladić, reports BIRN – Justice Report.

Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti accepted the defence’s request to remove Theodor Meron, Carmel Agius and Daqun Liu from the proceedings. 

Antonetti wrote in his decision that Meron, Agius and Liu “appear biased”, considering that they had previously rendered certain conclusions linked to Mladić in other cases in The Hague.

Antonetti decided on the motion after the MICT president exempted himself from making a decision, because the motion also applied to him.

“The responsibility for making the decision rests with the longest-serving judge considering the fact that I am a subject of the motion and, at the same time, the president of the Mechanism,” Meron said in his exemption decision.

Attorneys Branko Lukic and Dragan Ivetić filed the motion requesting that Meron, Agius and Liu be disqualified from the trial because they were “biased”. In separate motions, they cited parts of judgments written by judges Meron, Agius and Liu, which, according to the defense attorneys, included “unacceptable conclusions about Mladić”.

In respect of Meron, it is mentioned that he chaired the chamber which sentenced Radislav Krstić and Zdravko Tolimir for genocide in Srebrenica and that those verdicts indicated that Mladić “intended to kill Bosnian Muslims”, as well as that he was aware of unlawful activities undertaken by his subordinates.

The attorneys further said that Agius had been a member of the chamber that sentenced Vujadin Popović, Ljubiša Beara, Drago Nikolic, Radivoje Mileitć, Vinko Pandurević, Ljubomir Borovčanin and Milan Gvero, while Liu took part in the judgment against Vidoje Blagojević and Dragan Jokić.

In November last year, the Tribunal sentenced Mladić, former commander of the Main Headquarters of the Bosnian Serb army, VRS, to life in prison, pronouncing him guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terror against the population in Sarajevo through long-lasting shelling and sniping, as well as taking UNPROFOR members hostage.

Mladić was acquitted of charges of genocide in six other Bosnian municipalities.

Both the defense and MICT prosecutors filed appeals against the verdict. The final judgment is due to be pronounced next year.  

Antonetti, who chaired the first-instance chamber that acquitted Serbian politician Vojislav Šešelj of charges, has appointed a new chamber in Mladić’s case, consisting of judges Mparany Mamy Richard Rajohnson, Gberdao Gustave Kam and Elizabeth Ibanda-Nahamya.

(FENA) S. R.

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