Court rejects Karadzic subpoena

FILE - In this Nov. 3, 2009 file photo former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic enters the courtroom of the U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Karadzic, 66, asked U.N. judges on Monday, June 11, 2012, to dismiss his war crimes case halfway through the trial. Prosecutors finished presenting evidence against Karadzic last month, and he is calling for dismissal of all or some charges before he presents his formal defense. (AP Photo/Michael Kooren/Pool, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 3, 2009 file photo former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic enters the courtroom of the U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Karadzic, 66, asked U.N. judges on Monday, June 11, 2012, to dismiss his war crimes case halfway through the trial. Prosecutors finished presenting evidence against Karadzic last month, and he is calling for dismissal of all or some charges before he presents his formal defense. (AP Photo/Michael Kooren/Pool, File)

Published Oct 23, 2012

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The Hague -

The UN's Yugoslav war crimes court has rejected a call by Bosnian Serb former leader Radovan Karadzic to subpoena Greek President Carolos Papoulias to testify at his genocide trial.

“The requirements for the issuance of a subpoena have not been met,” the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said in a document made public on Tuesday. “The chamber denies the motion.”

Now 67, Karadzic faces 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, which left 100,000 dead and displaced 2.2 million others.

Papoulias was Greek foreign minister between 1993 and 1996 and Karadzic had said he was “one of the few international interlocutors whom the Bosnian Serbs trusted and with whom they could speak confidentially and candidly.”

Many Greeks supported Serbs during the conflict because of their common Orthodox Christianity. Karadzic was given a triumphal welcome when he visited Athens during the war in June 1993.

He said at the time that the Serbs only had two allies: “The Greeks and God.”

Karadzic, who was arrested in Belgrade in 2008, had said evidence by the Greek president would include establishing his innocence for the shelling of Sarajevo's Markale market on February 5, 1994, in which 67 people died.

Once the most powerful leader among Bosnian Serbs, Karadzic is accused in particular of masterminding the killings at the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica, where almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in July 1995 in the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

Karadzic began his own defence at the ICTY last week, telling the court that he should be rewarded for doing everything to avoid war in Bosnia and insisting he was a tolerant man who had sought to reduce human suffering. - Sapa-AFP

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