Klickovic et al: Gentlemen's Agreement
10 February 2010 Indictee Gojko Klickovic, former President of the wartime Presidency of the Serb municipality of Bosanska Krupa, says he made an agreement with an ICTY investigator on non-disclosure of certain documents.
"Paul Grady, the Hague prosecution investigator, and me reached a gentlemen's agreement not to disclose certain documents. I would like to meet with him and inform him of what I intend to do with those documents. I also consider that their behaviour was not correct," Klickovic told the Trial Chamber while presenting certain "unresolved issues facing his Defence".
The first indictee said that Radovan Karadzic and Momcilo Krajisnik "expressed willingness" to testify for his Defence before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Gojko Klickovic, Mladen Drljaca and Jovan Ostojic are charged with a number of crimes committed in the Bosanska Krupa area during 1992. The indictees are charged with having participated, in collaboration with Karadzic and Krajisnik, in a joint criminal enterprise which began in the summer of 1991 with the aim of creating a separate state of Bosnian Serbs.
Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, is awaiting the continuation of his trial, before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Krajisnik, former President of the Republika Srpska Assembly, was sentenced, by a second instance verdict pronounced by the ICTY in March 2009, to 20 years in prison for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is serving his sentence in Great Britain.
Testifying for Klickovic's Defence, witness A7 spoke about events that took place in Bosanska Krupa during 1992. The first indictee's Defence invited this witness to testify about the evacuation of Bosniaks from Krupa in May 1992, but, towards the end of his examination, the Defence became aware that the wrong person had been invited to testify.
"It is obvious the names are different, so we shall have to invite another witness to speak about the evacuation conducted in May 1992," Klickovic said. Witness A7 then said the Defence may have wanted to invite his brother, who is now deceased.
"My brother may have come to Krupa at the time when the evacuations were conducted, but I am not sure," witness A7 said, adding that he was not informed about the evacuation of Bosniaks, but that he later heard that "some Muslims crossed to the left bank of the Una river".
The witness recalled the "chaotic situation" in Krupa on the eve of the conflict, which began on April 21, 1992, as well as "a large number of unknown and armed people".
"I consider that the intolerance surfaced in Krupa after the arrest of Milan Martic in Bosanska Otoka. This was the cause of all the problems in the town," witness A7 said.
Milan Martic, former President, Minister of Defence and Minister of Internal Affairs of the Serb Autonomous Region of Krajina and The Serb Republic of Krajina, was sentenced before the ICTY in October 2008 to 35 years in prison for crimes committed in the Republic of Croatia. He is serving his sentence in Estonia.
The trial is due to continue on February 16.
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