SERBIA/FILE: Top UN war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz hopes that the trial of Ratko Mladic will resume in a matter of weeks rather than months.

Record ID: 644963

  • Title: SERBIA/FILE: Top UN war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz hopes that the trial of Ratko Mladic will resume in a matter of weeks rather than months.
  • Date: 23rd May 2012
  • Summary: BELGRADE, SERBIA (MAY 22, 2012) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF SPECIAL COURT BUILDING WINDOWS ON BUILDING SERGE BRAMMERTZ, CHIEF PROSECUTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA (ICTY), SHAKING HANDS WITH SERBIA'S WAR CRIMES PROSECUTOR, VLADIMIR VUKCEVIC BRAMMERTZ, VUKCEVIC AND ASSOCIATES SITTING AROUND THE TABLE BRAMMERTZ TALKING CAMERAMEN BRAMMERTZ HEADING TO PODIUM FOR NEWS CONFERENCE CAMERAMAN (SOUNDBITE) (English) SERGE BRAMMERTZ, CHIEF PROSECUTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA (ICTY), SAYING: "It is very important that we made a filling where we explained and recognised the problem, but where we also gave the right dimension to the problem. So we think, I don't know, if it's four weeks or six weeks or eight weeks, but not the six months which are requested by the defence." REPORTER TYPING ON LAP TOP (SOUNDBITE) (English) SERGE BRAMMERTZ, CHIEF PROSECUTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA (ICTY), SAYING (INTERSPERSED WITH SERBIAN TRANSLATION): "We have recognised the problem, we found it also very unfortunate, but we addressed it immediately. We have not opposed the request by the defence to have the presentation of evidence delayed for some time. But we are more thinking about number of weeks, not the number of months." REPORTER TAKING NOTES BRAMMERTZ LEAVING NEWS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 7th June 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Serbia
  • Country: Serbia
  • Topics: Conflict
  • Reuters ID: LVABFDTBYL376CBU6NFTRYHI1YVN
  • Story Text: Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Serge Brammertz met with Serbia's War Crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic on Tuesday (May 22) to discuss issues regarding the network of those who had helped hide war crimes fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
    Brammertz said he hopes the trial of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic will resume in a matter of weeks rather than months.
    "It is very important that we made a filling where we explained and recognised the problem, but where we also gave the right dimension to the problem. So we think, I don't know, if it's four weeks or six weeks or eight weeks, but not the six months which are requested by the defence," Brammertz said.
    Mladic's trial was postponed last week after it emerged that the prosecutors failed to give some evidence to the defence.
    Mladic's defence team claim that the prosecution failed to hand over thousands of pages of evidence, making their task of defending the man suspected for some of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War Two all the more difficult.
    But according to Brammertz only 3 percent of all the evidence, mainly transcripts from other trials, were mistakenly not passed on.
    The prosecution team filed a motion on Monday (May 21) with the full details of which attachments were omitted by mistake.
    Mladic is accused of orchestrating not only the week-long massacre of 8,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica but also the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, in which more than 10,000 people were killed by snipers, machine guns and heavy artillery.
    Mladic was indicted in 1995 along with Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serbs' political leader, who is also on trial in The Hague. Yet both remained free in Serbia for more than a decade before being tracked down.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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