British lawyer Richard Harvey appointed as Radovan Karadzic counsel The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal has appointed the British lawyer Richard Harvey to represent Radovan Karadzic if the former Bosnian Serb leader continues to boycott his trial.
Published: 1:29PM GMT 20 Nov 2009 Radovan Karadzic: Radovan Karadzic makes first appearance in genocide trial Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic Photo: AP
The United Nations court named Mr Harvey as the standby counsel for when the trial resumes in March.
Mr Harvey has experience in The Hague representing war crimes suspects from Kosovo.
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The decision appears unlikely to break the stalemate that led to the adjournment of Karadzic’s genocide and war crimes trial just days after it began last month when the defendant refused to attend court, saying he needed months more to prepare his defence.
Although he has no legal training, Karadzic has been representing himself with the help of legal advisers. He appeared alone in court at all pretrial hearings.
One of Karadzic’s advisers said the former Bosnian Serb leader will not co-operate with Mr Harvey. Marko Sladojevic told the Associated Press that Karadzic will respond next week to the appointment.
Prosecutors allege in an 11-count indictment that Karadzic masterminded Serb atrocities throughout the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, including the Srebrenica massacre. He insists he is innocent.
British lawyer Richard Harvey has been selected by the Hague Tribunal to represent and ”defend” former Bosnian-Serb president Radovan Karadzic against his will. Harvey has made disparaging remarks about Serbs and he is a defender of an anti-Serbian terrorist group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army.
by Andy Wilcoxson
(libertarian)
Friday, November 20, 2009
The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has reached a new low. They have selected a British attorney named Richard Harvey to ”defend” former Bosnian-Serb president Radovan Karadzic in his war crimes trial in The Hague — and they’ve done this completely against the will of the defendant.
Marko Sladojevic, one of Karadzic’s chosen legal advisers, told the AP news agency that ”Mr. Harvey has absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the case,” and Karadzic won’t cooperate with him.
In my previous columns, I explained how the Tribunal denied Karadzic the same pre-trial preparation time it afforded to several high profile non-Serbian defendants, I’ve also written how the Tribunal cut-off the funding to Karadzic’s chosen legal advisors, but this takes the cake.
The first thing that stands out about this so-called ”defense attorney” is the fact that he comes from a NATO country. NATO was a party to the Bosnian war; NATO bombed the Bosnian-Serbs. It doesn’t look right for the so-called ”defense attorney” to come from the enemy camp. How would it look if Karadzic was an American, and the lawyer came from someplace like Iran, or North Korea?
Mr. Harvey not only comes from an enemy country, he is also a defender of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an ethnic Albanian terrorist organization that waged a secessionist war against Serbia and cleansed Kosovo of nearly its entire Serbian and other non-Albanian populations. Harvey in bed with the Serbs’ biggest enemies — and he’s the one the Tribunal picked to ”defend” a Serbian leader.
Here is what Harvey had to say about the KLA and the Serbs in a brief he filed for KLA commander Lahi Brahimaj: ”the Kosovar Albanians waged a national liberation struggle against alien domination the KLA sought to be a professional and honorable army, in contrast to the tactics of the Serbs against the ethnic Albanian population.”
Here is a photo of Harvey’s ”professional and honorable” KLA posing with the severed heads of Serbs they butchered in Kosovo.
In the courtroom Harvey wasn’t shy about expressing his admiration for the KLA; he praised KLA commander Lahi Brahimaj and compared him to Nelson Mandela. He told the court that Brahimaj shouldn’t be found guilty; he should be found ”brilliant”.
While defending the KLA, Harvey argued that Serbs weren’t trustworthy. He said, ”Beyond the Serb forces rumor-mill, there is a disturbing lack of credible and reliable evidence.” He disparaged what he called ”those Serb intelligence documents upon which the Prosecution places so much reliance.”
Of all the lawyers in the entire world, this is the guy the Tribunal found to ”defend” a Serbian leader. This is the guy that’s supposed to represent Radovan Karadzic and defend him in court. There isn’t even a fig-leaf appearance of fairness for the Tribunal to hide behind. They literally went out and got a KLA lawyer from a NATO country to do the job. And this guy didn’t even do a good job for the KLA; both of his clients got convicted.
The Hague Tribunal is a kangaroo court. Radovan Karadzic isn’t being put on trial, he’s being lynched.
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©2009 Andy Wilcoxson, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Friday, November 20, 2009
Last modified: Friday, November 20, 2009
The views expressed in this article are those of Andy Wilcoxson only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Andy Wilcoxson is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.