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Ratko Mladic in court for his trial verdict in 2017. Photo: EPA-EFE/PETER DEJONG/POOL.

The Mechanism for International Tribunals in The Hague on Tuesday rejected the request for the removal of the judges who Mladic’s defence claims are biased against the former Bosnian Serb military chief, saying it should have been filed to the court’s president, not its appeals chamber.

“The Appellate Chamber does not have the capacity to deal with this motion,” said Theodor Meron, president of the Mechanism for International Tribunals.

Defense attorneys Branko Lukic and Dragan Ivetic requested that Meron, Carmel Agius and Liu Daqun be exempted from Mladic’s appeal against conviction because of their “partiality”.

In separate motions, Mladic’s lawyers cited parts of verdicts which Meron, Agius and Daqun wrote in which, they claimed, the judges made “unacceptable conclusions concerning Mladic”.

They said that Meron chaired the chambers that convicted Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic and military commander Zdravko Tolimir for genocide in Srebrenica, arguing that the verxdicts said that Mladic “intended to kill Bosnian Muslims” and that he was aware of the illegal activities committed by his subordinates.

Mladic’s lawyers also said that Agius was a member of the chamber that convicted Bosnian Serb military officers Vujadin Popovic, Ljubisa Beara, Drago Nikolic, Radivoje Miletic, Vinko Pandurevic, Ljubomir Borovcanin and Milan Gvero, while Daqun participated in the verdict in the case against Vidoje Blagojevic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Bratunac Brigade, and Dragan Jokic of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Zvornik Brigade.

The UN court sentenced Mladic to life imprisonment in November last year after finding him guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorising the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.

Mladic was acquitted of committing genocide in six other Bosnian municipalities.

In a new motion, Mladic’s defence lawyers meanwhile repeated their request to lift immunity from criminal prosecution for managers of the medical section of the UN Detention Unit, where the former Bosnian Serb military chief is being held, in order to be able to bring an action against them.

Mladic’s lawyers claim that he is not receiving adequate healthcare at the Detention Unit in Scheveningen in the Netherlands.

Mladic has been held in detention since May 2011, when he was arrested in Serbia.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals on Wednesday scheduled a status conference for July 10 as part of the appeals procedure in the Mladic case.

Meron said that Mladic and his lawyers will have the opportunity to “present their stance concerning the appellate procedure, as well as defendant’s mental and health state” at the status conference.

Read more:

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