Croatian Generals to See End of Trial Next Year

Two great war crime trials have started being burden, too heavy for Judge Alphonse Orie to take, so Gotovina’s trial could end before 2010.

ZAGREB, CROATIA – The most famous war crime defendant in The Hague Tribunal, Radovan Karadzic, will appear in the courtroom tomorrow at 4:00 pm for the first time and will declare himself guilty or not guilty of the crimes he is charged with in before Judge Alphonse Orie. Judge Orie also presides the trials of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac. 

As two great war crime trials have started being burden, too heavy for Judge Alphonse Orie to take, people started speculating that the trial of the Croatian generals will end in a year already, and that Orie will take over another case, Croatian jutarnji.hr reports.

Still unknown whether Orie will preside Karadzic’s trial 

The Croatian generals’ lawyers in The Hague assumed that a parallel trial in both cases could slow down the sentence on Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, as the judge would have to divide his energy in two great trials.

Hence, it is still unknown whether Judge Orie preside the Court in the Karadzic case, as the praxis of the ICTY is to have many different judges according to the case.