"Radovan Karadiæ will be the last defendant to be tried by the International Criminal Court for former Yugoslavia (ICC) of The Hague. The arrival of the Serbian leader in Holland has brought back into the limelight a problem that has already been upsetting the UN for some time". This was pointed out by Mauro Ungaro, editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine of the diocese of Gorizia (Voce Isontina), an expert in Balkan politics, in a comment just after the first preliminary hearing of Karadic, the former Serbian-Bosnian leader charged with genocide for the massacre of Srebrenica in 1995, where eight thousand Muslims were killed, and the siege of Sarajevo (twelve thousand people killed), during the war that followed the collapse of former Yugoslavia. Karadzic will stand in front of the judges of ICC this afternoon. "The Court recalls Ungaro established under resolution 827/1993 of the UN Security Council has been authorised by the United Nations to work until 2010. An extension to 2011 may be in order, but it is not likely to be extended any further than that, given the opposition of Russia, which has a right of veto within the Security Council. The timing with Karadiæ will be tight already. That the trial against the former Serbian-Bosnian leader will turn out to be complex and the defendant will not appear before the judges for a few months has been admitted by the Prosecuting Magistrate of the Court himself, Serge Brammertz". (continued)
