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Karadzic: Mladic Diaries Discussed

Tomasz Blaszczyk

20 August 2010  An investigator for Hague prosecutors told the trial of Radovan Karadzic that he personally took materials confiscated in the apartment of Ratko Mladic’s wife and transferred them to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY.

Tomasz Blaszczyk explained that the Ministry of Internal Affairs, MUP, of Serbia searched Bosiljka Mladic’s apartment in December 2008 and in February this year and that he took what they found. “The material was in my possession, and I was the only one who had access to it from the moment I received it from the War Crimes Prosecution in Belgrade until I handed it over to the evidence section at The Hague,” Blaszczyk said.
 
He said that Manojlo Milovanovic, the former deputy to Mladic, confirmed that 17 confiscated diaries had been personally handwritten by Mladic.  
 
“General Milovanovic had enough time to review the scanned diaries. He confirmed that most pages contained notes handwritten by Ratko Mladic. We consider this sufficient, because he worked with Mladic on a daily basis and attended most of the meetings so he was familiar with his handwriting,” Blaszczyk said.
 
Mladic, former commander of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, Main Headquarters, has been on the run for more than 10 years. He is charged with participation in a joint criminal enterprise, together with Radovan Karadzic and other Bosnian Serb leaders, with the aim of persecuting the non-Serbian population.  
 
The trial of Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska and Supreme Commander of VRS, who is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and violation of the laws and customs of war committed from 1992 to 1995, began before the ICTY last October.
 
Prosecutors presented video recordings taken during the war showing Mladic writing notes in various notebooks. Blaszczyk said they were the same notebooks found in Bosiljka Mladic’s apartment.  
 
During his cross-examination, Karadzic asked the witness if he knew that the human rights of ICTY indictees’ families were violated and if he was aware of “the arbitrariness of investigators”. Blaszczyk said he did “not have information about it except for the information published by the media”.
 
Karadzic did not deny that Mladic wrote the diaries but said the translation into English was “incomplete”.
 
“Mladic’s notes and sentences are not complete. I can see the translation was not always done properly. We shall have to solve many issues as many misunderstandings could emerge from short, syntactically incorrect notes,” he said.  
 
The next hearing is due to take place on September 6 following a two-week break to allow Karadzic to review the materials and evidence found in the apartment.
 
Trial chamber chairman O-Gon Kwon said a status conference to discuss “the past course of the trial and the ways for more expeditious trial management” would be held on September 3.

D.Dz.