Prosecutor Rejects Postponing Mladic Decision

The prosecution on Thursday called on The Hague Tribunal judges to refuse to postpone the first-degree act on Mladic, which is currently scheduled to be announced on November 22nd, arguing that the defence demand is unfounded.

Prosecutors said defence “has not offered the justification of its request and claims supporting that request”.

They said defence lawyers had failed to offer a list of evidence to support their claim that Mladic's “health state of mind has deteriorated significantly in the opinion of medical professionals” and that the general may be “unable to participate in the” trial because of his illness.

They stressed that doctors in the UN tribunal's detention unit, where Mladic is being held and independent specialists have closely monitored his health during the trial.

Their reports found that the defendant was able to attend the trial and hear the verdict on charges against him”, prosecutors said.

They also said the latest report by medical specialists on 22 September confirmed that the defendant's <x0 state of health is stable”.

Prosecutors further noted that in a recent ruling, The Hague Tribunal said Mladic “does not have acute medical problems” that have not been addressed with medical treatment

Mladic's defence Wednesday called on the UN tribunal to postpone the first degree decision until it was determined whether Mladic was mentally and physically capable of further participation in the trial.

His lawyers also said that despite repeated requests they have not yet received Mladic's full medical record from the tribunal secretariat.

“Sic is shown in limited medical data and images that we have been offered, medical professionals are of the opinion that the defendant's brain condition has been significantly damaged, including at least one blow that took place during his detention”, the defense said in the motion for the court.

The defence also said that his radiologist, who examined the images presented by the tribunal, noticed that a significant deterioration of Mladic's brain tissue since the beginning of the trial” and claimed that “truth is potentially presented wrongly” in the records written by court doctors.

Prior to his arrest in late May 2011, Mladic, who is now 74 years old, had suffered three blows.

The defence demanded in March that Mladic be released and allowed to go to Russia, claiming that dealing with his illness at The Hague was insufficient.

The court chamber rejected the request, saying Mladic had received adequate treatment at The Hague.

The main reason for rejecting the motion was related to the judges' uncertainty if Mladic would return to The Hague because he had been on the run for 16 years before being arrested.

Mladic is being tried for genocide in Srebrenica, the persecution of Bosniaks and Croats throughout Bosnia, allegedly reaching the scale of genocide in several other municipalities.

Also accused of terrorising the Sarajevo population and kidnapping UN peacekeepers. /Call. com/