http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090525/usa/warcrimes_serbia_bosnia_icty_karad
zic_immunity_1
Karadzic claims 'evidence' of immunity deal
Mon May 25, 7:03 PM
THE HAGUE (AFP) - Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic filed on
Monday what he claimed was evidence of an immunity deal struck with a top US
diplomat and asked a war crimes court to dismiss the case against him.
In a motion before the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY), Karadzic claimed to have witnesses to Richard Holbrooke's
promise of immunity in return for his disappearing from the public eye.
"The indictment should be dismissed, or the proceedings should be stayed, so
that the hands of the tribunal are not stained with Holbrooke's deception,"
Karadzic, 63, said in a motion before the ICTY.
"Dr Karadzic honoured his part of the agreement. He now seeks to require the
tribunal to honour Holbrooke's part."
Karadzic claims Holbrooke -- now US President Barack Obama's special envoy
to Pakistan and Afghanistan -- made the undertaking with the authority of
the UN Security Council.
The council is the parent body of tribunal, based in The Hague, that will
try him on 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for
his role in Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.
Karadzic's legal adviser Peter Robinson told journalists in The Hague there
were two direct witnesses to the pact Holbrooke allegedly made at a meeting,
which his client did not attend, in Belgrade on July 18 and 19, 1996.
They were Bosnian Serb assembly speaker Momcilo Krajisnik and foreign
minister Aleksa Buha, who attended with Holbrooke and six other US
representatives as well as former Serb President Slobodan Milosevic and his
intelligence chief Jovica Stanisic.
Milosevic died during his own war crimes trial in 2006, while Stanisic was
too ill to make any statements.
Conceding that Holbrooke never put his signature on paper, Robinson said
there were 13 second-hand witnesses -- including members of Karadzic's
family whom he had told of the agreement.
There was also evidence from three ex-US state department employees, and a
cable from a former US ambassador that appeared to support the existence of
a promise that "The Hague would disappear".
Karadzic asked the court for a hearing to "determine who is telling the
truth about the Holbrooke agreement and who is not".
Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton peace agreement that ended the
Bosnian conflict, has denied making an immunity deal with Karadzic.
Robinson said his client had been unable to find a single US record of the
Holbrooke meeting.
The tribunal already ruled last December that an immunity deal would not be
binding and could not stop the prosecution.
But Robinson said the ICTY did not have all the information then. "We are
hoping that when it has all the facts before it ... that it will see things
differently."
Were it to recognise the agreement, the court will also have to rule on its
validity, said the lawyer. "That has big implications for negotiations with
(Sudan's) President (Omar) al-Beshir, (Zimbabwe's) President (Robert)
Mugabe."
Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade last July after 13 years on the run.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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http://www.antic.org/
