Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic begins his defense

Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic who has been convicted of war crimes begins his defense at the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes court.

On Tuesday, the former Bosnian Serb leader began his defence at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Netherlands, saying that he should be praised for peace efforts not charged with genocide.

“Instead of being accused for the events in our civil war I should have been rewarded for all the good things I have done, because I did everything within human power to avoid the war and to reduce the human suffering,” Karadzic said.

“Namely, that I did everything in my human power to avoid the war that I succeeded in reducing the suffering of all civilians, that the number of victims in our war was three to four times less than the numbers reported in public.

I proclaimed numerous unilateral ceasefires and military containments and I stopped our army many times when they were close to victory,” he added.

On August 13, Karadzic filed a motion before the ICTY, claiming that the UN prosecutors were late in disclosing crucial evidence favorable to his case.

In his motion, Karadzic accused the prosecutors of only making evidence in his favor available once his trial had started.

In June, the court dropped one genocide charge against the former president of Republika Srpska and supreme commander of its armed forces, saying that the prosecutors did not present enough evidence to support the charge.

The judges, however, refused to dismiss ten other charges, including one additional charge of genocide in regard to Karadzic’s role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

The 67-year-old was arrested on a bus in Belgrade in 2008, more than a decade after he was first indicted for ordering atrocities during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

He is also accused of involvement in the forcible removal and murder of thousands of Croatian civilians during Dalj massacre, Erdut massacre, and Lovas massacre between 1991 and 1993.

MAM/MA