Mladic's Preferred Defenders Face Language Barrier

Former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic (C) in the court room at the UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, 04 July 2011 where he was scheduled to enter a plea against charges of genocide during the Bosnian war. Photo by BGNES

A permanent defense counsel of wartime Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic will most likely be assigned by the end of the week, according to Martin Petrov, who heads the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's (ICTY) Registrar's Office.

One of the two defenders suggested by Mladic, Russian jurist Alexander Mezyaev, took a language test Wednesday, following regulations requiring that the lawyers be fluent in at least one of the two Hague Tribunal official languages, English and French.

The results will be available in the next 2-3 days, but Mezyaev has said that he does not want to be the lead counsel of Mladic.

The second candidate, Mladic's personal favorite, Belgrade-based military lawyer Milos Saljic, can not do the job because he has said that he speaks Serbian Russian and Albanian.

According to the Hague Tribunal representative, both Mezyaev and Salic may be included in Mladic's defense team, whose members are under no obligation to appear in court and therefore do not need to certify foreign language competence.

Even though he had threatened to boycott the July 04 U.N. war crimes court hearing at The Hague, the former Bosnian Serb military leader showed up, only to be removed from the courtroom

Mladic refused to enter a plea and disrupted the judge's attempts to read out the charges against him.

The proceedings resumed in Mladic's absence, and Orie said the chamber had entered a plea of not guilty to all charges on the suspect's behalf.

The ex-army chief stands accused of genocide, violations of the laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.

He was arrested in Serbia on May 26 after 16 years spent hiding from the international justice.

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