The Hague war crimes tribunal appointed a prominent Belgrade lawyer on Thursday to defend Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander whose coming trial on genocide charges is now the UN court’s biggest case. Mladic, 69, remained in isolation at Scheveningen prison on the Dutch coast before his arraignment on Friday. Serbian media reports said he would defer entering a plea, and the court would reschedule a further hearing in 30 days. “Mladic is still separated from other prisoners. He can be kept like that for up to 7 days following his arrival,” tribunal spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said.
The general was arrested in a Serb village last week nearly 16 years after his indictment. Most of that time he managed to live discreetly but safely in Belgrade, relying on loyal supporters who consider him a hero of the 1992-95 Bosnia war.
He is now in detention in the same facility as his political alter-ego, the wartime Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic, who was the tribunal’s last big catch in 2008 and who has been on trial since October 2009. Karadzic also began the legal process by deferring his plea to the tribunal judges for 30 days.
Lawyers for both suspects say they are destined to meet in the coming days to discuss the possibility that their cases could be joined, either at their own request or that of tribunal prosecutors.
The International Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, set up in 1993, expects to wind up by 2014. It has been criticised for lengthy procedures and is likely to avoid any move that would complicate completion of its two biggest remaining cases. The court said it had appointed Aleksandar Aleksic as Mladic’s interim legal counsel. Aleksic has defended a prominent Serbian army general and is currently representing a Bosnian Serb police chief accused of war crimes.
