Prosecutors seek Karadzic life sentence

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) should sentence Radovan Karadzic to life in prison if he is convicted of "a substantial portion" of the charges against him, prosecutors argued in a written brief published on Friday.

Karadzic was leader of Republika Srpska, an ethnically Serb breakaway state carved out of multi-ethnic Bosnia during the 1992-1995 war that left 100,000 people dead. He is charged with 11 counts including genocide for allegedly directing Bosnian Serb atrocities throughout the war, including the 1995 massacre of several thousand Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. Karadzic maintains he is innocent.

"Under his command and oversight, Karadzic's subordinates and those cooperating with them expelled, killed, tortured and otherwise mistreated hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Croats," the prosecutors wrote in their "final trial brief." The initial paper was submitted to the court in August, with a redacted version published on Friday.

"Should the Chamber find Karadzic responsible for a substantial portion of the crimes … life imprisonment is the only appropriate sentence," they said. The prosecutors also dismissed most of Karadzic's defense witnesses as "demonstrably lacking in credibility," calling much of their testimony "confused, contradictory, vague, evasive and often plainly absurd."

Latter stages of trial

On Monday, the prosecution will start its closing arguments in the case, which began in 2009. Karadzic, who is defending himself, will respond on Wednesday, after which the judges will retire to decide on a verdict and sentence. The latter phases of the trial could still take many months.

Charges were first filed against Karadzic in 1995, shortly before the war's end; he was finally arrested in the Serbian capital Belgrade in 2008 after years as a fugitive. He had been working incognito as a new-age healer.

As well as the Srebrenica massacre, Karadzic is also accused of orchestrating the shelling of Sarajevo during a 44-month siege of the city; casualty estimates vary, but between 5,000 and 10,000 civilians are thought to have died in the city.

"They bombarded Sarajevo with shells and bullets, killing, maiming and terrorizing its civilian population for over three-and-a-half years," the prosecutors wrote. "The scale and scope of these criminal campaigns is vast."

General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serbs' military leader, is also on trial at the ICTY in The Hague for his alleged role in the Srebrenica massacre. The Serbian president at the time, Slobodan Milosevic, also stood trial there in 2006 but died before the end of his trial.

msh/jm (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)