Karadžić appeals lawyer decision

Radovan Karadžić has filed an appeal after his request to have British lawyer Richard Harvey dismissed as his appointed legal counsel was denied.

Harvey was appointed to represent the former political leader of Bosnia’s Serbs in October 2009, after he boycotted his Hague trial for three days, demanding a postponement in order to prepare his defense.

Karadžić’s appeal states that the trial chamber had violated the provisions of the tribunal’s statute by appointing Harvey, which say that the accused should be given a list of counselors from which he can choose, as was the case in the Šešelj trial.

He objected the fact that there were no lawyers from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia on the lists and demanded the tribunal’s explanation.

The tribunal initially offered three lawyers and then added another two, but the accused refused all five of them.

The trial chamber then appointed Harvey as his counsel. Karadžić, however, claims in his appeal that the trial chamber imposed the lawyer whom he “will not and cannot trust” instead of allowing him to choose one he had good cooperation with until that point.

Karadžić has already once requested Harvey’s dismissal, pointing out that he wanted to work with a lawyer that shared his “tradition and language”.

The request was denied by the trial chamber in early December.

Karadžić has been accused by the court of genocide and war crimes committed in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war there.