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ICTY Press Briefing

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Date: 22.10.2015
Time: 15:00 p.m.

Registry and Chambers:

Nenad Golčevski, Acting Spokesperson for Registry and Chambers, made the following statement:

Good afternoon,

Yesterday, the permanent judges of the ICTY held an Extraordinary Plenary Session to elect the President and Vice President of the Tribunal. By acclamation, the judges elected Judge Carmel Agius, from Malta, as President of the Tribunal, and Judge Liu Daqun, from China, as Vice-President. Judge Agius will succeed President Meron while Judge Liu will replace Vice-President Agius. They will serve for a two year term starting November 17 this year.

Last week, on 13 October, President Theodor Meron presented the Tribunal’s twenty-second Annual Report, and the third Annual Report of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) to the UN General Assembly. In his speech, President Meron reported on the Tribunal’s significant progress in completing the last of its proceedings and highlighted the Mechanism’s achievements of the past year as well as its on-going challenges. President Meron’s speech before the UN General Assembly as well as the annual reports, are available on the Tribunal’s and Mechanism’s websites.

I will now turn to several recent decisions. In the case of Momir Nikolić, a public redacted version of President Meron’s decision to grant Nikolić early release was filed on 12 October 2015. The decision was initially issued on 14 March 2014. Momir Nikolić pleaded guilty to the persecution of Bosnian Muslim civilians in Srebrenica in 1995. He was sentenced in December 2003, by the Trial Chamber, to 27 years’ imprisonment. This sentence was subsequently reduced to 20 years’ imprisonment by the Appeals Chamber in March 2006.

Next, in a decision by President Meron made public on 9 October 2015, Ljubiša Beara was transferred to Germany to serve his sentence. The decision was initially issued on 28 May this year. Beara was sentenced to life imprisonment for a range of crimes, including genocide, committed in 1995 after the fall of the enclaves of Srebrenica and Žepa, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Beara’s sentence was affirmed by the Appeals Chamber in January this year.

In the Prlić and others case, a status conference has been scheduled to take place on Monday 23 November, at 15:00 in courtroom 1.

Finally, as a reminder, the court will be closed tomorrow, for UN Day, which is observed on 24  October. This date will also mark the 70th anniversary since the entry into force of the UN Charter in 1945. The Tribunal will re-open on Monday.

Thank you.

Questions:

No questions were asked