ICTY appellate chamber reinstates Karadzic genocide charge

The appellate chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Thursday reversed the acquittal of one genocide charge against former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic by the tribunal last year. The trial chamber of the Tribunal in June last year upheld 10 other war crime counts against Karadzic, but acquitted him of one charge that covered mass killings, expulsions and persecution by Serb forces of Muslims and Croats from Bosnian towns early in the country's 1992-95 war.. But the appellate chamber concluded that the evidence could prove that the genocidal act of "causing serious bodily or mental harm occurred" and the genocidal act "of deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of victims" occurred. "The trial chamber erred by finding that evidence produced by the prosecution was incapable of proving that Karadzic possessed relevant genocidal intent," the chamber added. The ruling means Karadzic now faces eleven charges, including an initial charge of genocide for the Srebrenica massacre. After the fall of the UN protected enclave Srebrenica, eighteen years ago, over 7,500 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces. Karadzic was arrested in the Serbian capital Belgrade and transferred to The Hague in the middle of 2008, after having spent more than thirteen years evading arrest. He is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war committed during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. He leads his own defense.