keeping up with dr. k

today's my first official day as a tier 5 temporary worker at AI. exciting times. will share more about the day later.

but first. it's been a while since i've reported on the notorious dr. k. the latest from the hague:

PROSECUTION, JUDGES IN KARADZIC CASE STAND-OFF
Stalemate as prosecutors decline trial chamber’s request to trim charges ahead of trial.
By Simon Jennings in The Hague (TU No 617, 25-Sep-09)

Prosecutors bringing the case against former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic at the Hague tribunal have stood their ground in the face of pressure from judges to cut the indictment.

In the last court meeting between parties on September 8, pre-trial judge O-Gon Kwon, made a number of suggestions as to how the prosecution could limit the time it needs to present its case - including dropping charges related to alleged opportunistic killings in Potocari in the run up to the genocide in the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995.

The existing indictment drafted on February 27, 2009, outlines five such execution incidents involving Bosniak men and boys on July 12 and 13 during the course of the wider Bosnian Serb operation at Srebrenica.

The judge also suggested that the number of municipalities in relation to which the prosecution plans to present criminal evidence should be cut from 27 to between 10 and 12.

However, prosecutors wrote to the three-judge panel on September 18 arguing that “those further reductions would have an adverse impact on the prosecution’s ability to fairly present its case”.

Kwon’s proposal that the prosecution cut the indictment further after it had already agreed to make certain cuts in response to a request from the judge’s predecessor on the case, Lord Iain Bonomy, sparked angry protest in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

Members from some of the conflict’s victims’ associations took to the streets last week and set fire to pictures of tribunal judges outside the city’s United Nations office.

There is concern that if prosecutors limit the amount of evidence presented and reduce the number of crime sites covered during their case, this will jeopardise their bid to prove the most serious charges against the former president of the Serb-dominated region of Republika Srpska.

Karadzic faces an 11-count indictment, charging him with two counts of genocide for the forcible permanent removal of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats from large parts of Bosnia as well as for the 1995 massacre of approximately 8,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica.

Read the full story.