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Appeals in Radovan Karadzic’s case are being heard by the UN’s Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals on Monday and Tuesday, with the former Bosnian Serb leader claiming his trial was a “flawed process” that “led to an unjust result”.

In his 238-page appeal brief, Karadzic details what he claims are “48 substantive and procedural errors” that allegedly led to his wrongful conviction for genocide and war crimes against non-Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 2016. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The judgment should be reversed but if the appeals chamber upholds any part of the conviction, it should impose a lower sentence, Karadzic argues.

The prosecution is also appealing, asking the judges to increase Karadzic’s sentence to life imprisonment.

In March 2016, the three-judge panel at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia unanimously determined Karadzic was the mastermind behind four joint criminal enterprises designed to permanently and forcibly remove non-Serbs from large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to establish Serb dominance.

The former president of Republika Srpska was found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, the persecution of Croat and Bosniak civilians throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, a campaign of shelling and sniper attacks campaign against the population of Sarajevo intended to spread terror, and of taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Karadzic was acquitted of a second charge of genocide against Bosniaks and Croats in seven other Bosnian municipalities in 1992 – Bratunac, Foca, Kljuc, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Vlasenica and Zvornik.

The judges’ conclusion that Karadzic did not possess the “genocidal intent” to destroy non-Serbs in these seven municipalities is the focus of the prosecution’s appeal against the first-instance judgment.

Most of Karadzic’s 50 grounds for appeal are procedural. He claims he “did not receive a fair trial” as a result of “the Trial Chamber’s failure to limit the scope of the amorphous indictment and to ensure that the prosecution complied with its disclosure obligations”.

The defence also alleged the court had “double standards” and favoured the prosecution.

While not directly challenging the judgment’s main factual findings about the crimes, the defence says that “the Trial Chamber’s reliance on debatable inferences, instead of solid evidence, to conclude that President Karadzic shared the common purpose of four separate JCEs [joint criminal enterprises], was an error that resulted in a miscarriage of justice”.

“Nowhere was this miscarriage of justice more apparent than when the Trial Chamber found him guilty of genocide by inferring that he shared the intent to kill the prisoners from Srebrenica based upon its own interpretation of a cryptic intercepted conversation. This inference is unsound and untrue and the verdict is unjust,” the defence says in its appeal.

The “cryptic intercepted conversation” referred to by the defence took place on July 13, 1995, when Karadzic was told by his envoy in Srebrenica, Miroslav Deronjic, that 2,000 prisoners from Srebrenica had arrived in nearby Bratunac and that more were expected.

According to Deronjic’s notes, Karadzic told him that “all the goods must be placed inside warehouses before 12 tomorow… not in the warehouses over there, but elsewhere”.

In its judgment, the Trial Chamber inferred that the “goods” were actually Bosniak prisoners who the Bosnian Serb Army, under Karadzic’s supreme command, transported to Zvornik the next day and subsequently executed “at least 5,115” of them.

The defence appeal claims there is an alternative interpretation of this conversation – that Karadzic intended not to execute Bosniak men, but to send them to a military prison in Batkovic.

Karadzic “had no involvement in the execution of the men from Srebrenica”, so the trial chamber was wrong when it found that he “shared the common purpose of eliminating the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica”, the appeal says.

According to the defence, this means that Karadzic did not possess genocidal intent in Srebrenica.

Addressing his conviction for persecution and other crimes in 20 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Karadzic alleges that the court “took his statements favouring political autonomy for Serbs out of context to erroneously conclude that he favoured a homogenous State from which Muslims and Croats should be expelled”.

In the appeal against his conviction for terrorising Sarajevo, Karadzic contends that judges “disregarded his many orders aimed at preventing fire against civilians, misapplied principles of ‘distinction’ and ‘proportionality’ by failing to assess the shelling from the perspective of a military commander, and ignored the United Nations’ own expert report on the Markale market shelling”.

Karadzic argues that the trial chamber wrongly concluded that a shell that hit Sarajevo’s Markale market on February 5, 1994, killing 66 civilians, was fired by the Bosnian Serb Army.

In response to Karadzic’s conviction of hostage taking, the defence argues that members of the UN protection force UNPROFOR were “lawfully detained” as they took part in combat-related activities against the Bosnian Serb Army.

The prosecution’s appeal meanwhile contends that the first-instance ruling wrongly failed to find that Karadzic and other members of the joint criminal enterprise possessed genocidal intent against Bosniaks and Croats in the seven other Bosnian municipalities in 1992.

Prosecutors argue that the judges applied “an overly narrow definition of genocidal intent” and made an error in concluding that “the objective of permanent removal [of non-Serbs]… precluded a finding of genocidal intent” to destroy Bosniaks and Croats as ethnic groups in the seven municipalities.

The final judgment in the Karadzic case is expected by December.

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Radovan Karadzic Recalls Evading Capture in Belgrade</s>The Hague — Lawyers representing wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic have asked UN judges to overturn his conviction and 40-year jail sentence for genocide and demanded a retrial.

Karadzic was convicted two years ago for some of the worst war crimes committed as the former Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990s, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed.

"We are here today to ask you to overturn Radovan Karadzic’s conviction and order a new trial," defence lawyer Peter Robinson told a panel of UN judges as two days of appeal hearings got under way.

In the court room a group of victims from the "Bosnian Mothers of Srebrenica" organisation watched Karadzic, 72, who looked healthy and resolute. He was seated behind his legal team.

Karadzic, who was arrested a decade ago after a years-long manhunt, was found guilty on 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia he oversaw as president of the breakaway Bosnian Serb Republic. His lawyers said his seven-year "out-of-control mega-trial" violated his rights to a fair hearing.

Karadzic would argue that the initial judgment was wrong in concluding that he was a member of a joint criminal enterprise to drive out non-Serbs from Serb-claimed territory in Bosnia and Croatia, his lawyers said. He would contest the charge that he supported the shelling of civilians during the siege of Sarajevo, they said.

Karadzic’s conviction was handed down by UN judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia which said he was "at the apex of power" of the Bosnian Serb military and political hierarchy when the atrocities were committed. The appeals hearing is being held at the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which is handling UN war crimes cases for the Balkans and Rwanda.</s>Bosnian Serb wartime leader Karadzic appears for his appeals judgement at the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague Thomson Reuters By Stephanie van den Berg

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic will take the courtroom floor again on Monday when he contests his conviction for genocide and a 40-year prison sentence before U.N. appeals judges.

Karadzic was convicted in 2016 for some of the worst war crimes committed as the former Yugoslavia broke apart, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Now 72, Karadzic was found guilty on 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia he oversaw as the president of the breakaway Bosnian Serb Republic.

He has filed 50 grounds of appeal in an effort to overturn his conviction and sentence. Acting as his own lawyer, with help of legal counsel, he has asked for the entire judgment to be reversed and for a "new and fair trial" to be ordered.

His conviction was handed down by U.N. judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) which said he was "at the apex of power" of the Bosnian Serb military and political hierarchy when atrocities were committed by his troops.

It was the last major verdict at the ICTY, which closed at the end of 2017.

The two-day appeals hearing will be held at the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT), which is handling outstanding U.N. war crimes cases for the Balkans and Rwanda.

After Karadzic has presented his appeal on Monday, prosecutors are due to speak on Tuesday. A verdict is expected by the end of the year.

The prosecutors will appeal Karadzic's acquittal on a second count of genocide in various towns across Bosnia during the war of the 1990s. They will seek a life sentence.

In their verdict, judges said the 44-month siege of Sarajevo could not have happened without Karadzic; that he committed crimes against humanity in an attempt to purge Muslims and Croats from parts of Bosnia; and that he had intended to eliminate the Bosnian Muslim males of the town of Srebrenica.</s>Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has urged United Nations judges to quash his convictions for genocide and war crimes, claiming they were based on “jokes and rumours” and “myths” about the 1992-1995 conflict in Bosnia.

Karadzic lodged 50 grounds of appeal on Monday against his 2016 conviction, when he was found responsible for crimes including the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica and the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, which claimed about 10,000 lives.

“Certain statements were misused, rights were neglected, facts were distorted and motives were concealed,” Karadzic (72) told judges at The Hague.

“The consequences of this entire conduct were then portrayed as sheer madness.”

The one-time psychiatrist claimed that his Serb forces only defended Serb communities from Bosnian Muslim and Croat attack, that they did not take areas inhabited by other ethnic groups by force, and that Bosnian Muslims repeatedly shelled their own soldiers and civilians.

He also insisted that his wartime statements were misinterpreted “to blacken me and portray me as a person only concerned with my own people”.

Defence lawyer Peter Robinson said Karadzic had not received a fair hearing at a seven-year “out-of-control mega-trial” that ended with his client being jailed for 40 years.

Watching from the gallery in the courtroom on Monday, Munira Subasic of the Mothers of Srebrenica group said: “I was sitting in front of a monster.”

“He is a liar, lying is his line of defence,” she told the AFP news agency.

When delivering his verdict on Karadzic in March 2016, presiding judge O-Gon Kwon said “there was intention to commit murder, extermination and persecution” of non-Serbs during a war that killed 100,000 people and drove more than two million from their homes.

“The killings were committed as part of a highly organised plan, and the accused made a significant contribution to the crimes,” he added.

Referring to the massacre at Srebrenica – the worst atrocity in Europe since the second World War – he said Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic intended “that every able-bodied Bosnian Muslim male from Srebrenica be killed”.

Karadzic was arrested in 2008 on a bus in Belgrade, where he was living under a false name as a new-age healer; Mladic was caught at a relative’s house in 2011, and sentenced to life imprisonment last November for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Mladic verdict was the last trial judgment to be handed down by the UN court at The Hague before it closed at the end of last year, and Karadzic’s appeal and others are being heard by the so-called Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals.

Prosecutors in the Karadzic case are also appealing against his sentence and his acquittal on a second count of genocide, relating to crimes allegedly committed in towns across Bosnia during the war.

They will ask judges to deliver another guilty verdict and a life sentence when they present their case on Tuesday. A final ruling on the appeals is expected by the end of the year.
Radovan Karadžić starts his appeal against his conviction for genocide and other wartime crimes at the UN court at The Hague.