Belgrade "turned away from path of full Hague cooperation"

Belgrade "turned away from path of full Hague cooperation"

Obradovic explained a ruling by the High Court in Belgrade under which the legal requirements for the arrests and extradition of Petar Jojic, Vjerica Radeta and Jovo Ostojic - charged with contempt of court in the Vojislav Seselj trial - have not been met.

The arrest warrant was issued two months following Seselj's provisional release (in January 2015) and, due to risks to national security, the Serbian government decided that action on the ICTY warrant should be postponed, Obradovic said.

The Serbian government proposed that the three be tried before Serbian courts, but the ICTY rejected the proposal, he said.

The High Court of Belgrade made the decision pursuant to Serbia's law on cooperation with the ICTY, under which Serbia is obliged to extradite only persons charged with the gravest war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity - not individuals charged with contempt of court, he said.

ICTY President Carmel Agius expressed disappointment with the decision of the Belgrade court, noting that Serbia is obligated to cooperate fully with the Tribunal.

"It is a grave step backwards in matters of cooperation with the Tribunal and an unacceptable disregard of the primacy of Tribunal law over the domestic law of Serbia as intended by the Security Council," he said.

Agius also "addressed the challenges facing the Tribunal during its final biennium. In particular, he called upon the Security Council to assist the Tribunal in implementing strategies to retain staff until the completion of its mandate," the Hague Tribunal said on its website.

Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said that the Office of the Prosecutor regrets that Serbia "has turned away from the path of full cooperation with the Tribunal.”

He informed the Security Council that Serbia "failed for a year and a half to execute the Tribunal’s arrest warrants for three individuals indicted for contempt" and noted that "in this final phase of the Tribunal’s work, state cooperation remains essential to enable the completion of the Tribunal’s mandate."

Brammertz added that the positive trend in regional cooperation in war crimes appears to be reversing.

“Too many politicians and public figures are denying well-established truths, inflaming ethnic tensions and repeating nationalistic slogans of the past," he said.

According to Brammertz, "while there have been many positive developments in national war crimes justice and regional cooperation, the political situation throughout the region is moving in the opposite direction."