Hague Rejects Karadzic’s Plea to Reconsider Denial of Appeal

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals on Wednesday denied Radovan Karadzic's motion for an appeal chamber to be appointed at the Hague court to decide on his request to review a previous decision that rejected his appeal against the final verdict in his trial sentencing him to life in prison.

In March this year, the Hague court sentenced Karadzic to life in prison in the final verdict after he appealed against his first-instance conviction.

He was found guilty of 1995 genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica, terrorising the civilian population of Sarajevo with a long-running campaign of shelling and sniper attacks, the persecution and extermination of Bosniaks and Croats in 20 municipalities across the country, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

The final verdict acquitted him of genocide in other municipalities in 1992.

The UN court on Wednesday also rejected Karadzic's motion to submit his request for a reconsideration of the denial of a further appeal to judge Jean-Claude Antonetti, rather than the president of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, Carmel Agius, or its most experienced judge, Theodor Meron.

Karadzic had called for the decision on his request for an appeal to be made by Antonetti, as he alleged that both Agius and Meron were biased against him because they had previously sentenced his subordinates for similar crimes.

Immediately after Wednesday's decision, Karadzic's lawyer Peter Robinson filed another request to appeal against it and to remove Agius and Meron from deciding on it.