Justice report
Karadzic: Disqualification of Serbian Attorneys
Radovan Karadzic
18 December 2009 Indictee Radovan Karadzic claims that the Hague Tribunal Registrar prevented him from choosing an attorney by imposing "fictive obstacles".
Radovan Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, who is charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, with crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, filed a motion saying that the Registrar had made a number of mistakes when he invited the indictee to choose from a list containing five selected attorneys.
"By creating unauthorized and inappropriate obstacles, the Registrar violated the Rules of Procedure and his own order, but he ignored all those obstacles when he qualified his own favourites. (...) The Registrar's decision on choosing which parts of the order he would respect and which ones he would not, in order to manipulate the trial, is simply inexplicable," Karadzic said.
The Registrar's Office said the indictee was offered a shortlist of Defence attorneys, because a number of attorneys, in fact 108 of them, were eliminated due to "previous problems", such as conflict of interest, lack of experience or non-availability.
"Had the Tribunal considered it was appropriate for the Registrar to make his own special list by eliminating some names from the list of attorneys, it would have said so and made a decision as part of a separate procedure,“ Karadzic said, adding that the Registrar wrongly interpreted and applied the Rules of Procedure.
"The Registrar disqualified all Serbian attorneys, because they, at some stage, represented people who were charged with crimes included in the indictment against Karadzic. This is a wrong interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, which allege that such representation is prohibited only in case the two clients are materially opposite," Karadzic said.
Among other things, the indictee mentioned the fact that the list proposed by the Registrar contained the name of Coleen Rohan, an attorney from the US, who represented an indictee charged with crimes committed in Srebrenica, but, at the same time, he deprived him of the right to select a Serbian attorney, who represented indictees who were charged with crimes included in his indictment.
"The Registrar has gone one step further by appointing Ms. Rohan as Richard Harvey's legal advisor, ignoring, once again, the same conflict of interest, which he used for disqualification of the Serbian attorneys," the indictee said in his motion.
After the indictee refused to appear in court at the beginning of the trial, in November 2009 the Registrar appointed Harvey as his Defence attorney. Harvey will represent him at the trial, when it continues on March 1, 2010, if he continues "interfering with the course of the trial".
Despite the fact that the Tribunal previously rejected Karadzic's appeal to the attorney appointment decision, claiming that it was “deficient”, the indictee filed another motion in December, calling on the Court to revoke its decision on Richard Harvey's appointment.
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Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
The opinions expressed in Balkan Insight are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
The opinions expressed in Balkan Insight are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
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