Contempt

Former KLA soldier Shefqet Kabashi decided to postpone entering his plea. As he explained, he hasn’t yet read the indictment. Kabashi is on trial for contempt of court for refusing to testify in the Hardinaj et al. case. He is now scheduled to re-appear before the court next Friday. In the meantime, there will be a new attempt to make him testify about the KLA crimes in Jablanica. Kabashi talked about them in his statements to the OTP investigators but refused to repeat his claims in court

In one of the longest appellate proceedings in the history of the Tribunal in The Hague, all grounds of appeal presented by Florence Hartmann were dismissed by the Appeals Chamber. The Trial Chamber’s judgment handed down in September 2009 was upheld. The Trial Chamber found the French journalist guilty of contempt of court and fined her €7,000. As the French journalist said, the judgment threatens to undermine the progress achieved in the past three decades in the domain of the protection of freedom of speech

The Serbian Radicals’ leader pleaded not guilty to the charges stemming from his refusal to comply with a number of court orders to withdraw confidential information from his website. Seselj has made public on his website the identities of protected prosecution witnesses and has already been sentenced to 15 months in prison for this offense. The reason for Mladic’s conduct in court two days ago was discovered today

In the closing arguments delivered at the second contempt of court trial of the Serbian Radical leader, the prosecutor sought a three-year sentence for the accused because he disclosed the identities of 11 protected witnesses. As the accused said, he would like to be sentenced to death, although the case against him didn’t warrant a conviction. Jovan Glamocanin claims Zoran Djindjic tried to pressure him into taking part in ‘Seselj’s political assassination’ in mid-April 2003; at that time, Djindjic was already dead

As they testified in Vojislav Seselj’s defense at his contempt of court trial, several former members of Seselj’s formations claimed that their statements to the OTP investigators were made under duress. They were scared by the investigators’ threats and blackmail and blamed the Serbian Radical Party leader. The witnesses failed to explain how their fear vanished suddenly and what prompted them to switch sides and turn from prosecution witnesses back into Seselj’s followers and his witnesses. The accused again behaved scandalously in the courtroom and insulted the judges

At the contempt of court trial, the Serbian Radicals’ leader started his case with the testimony of one of the 11 protected prosecution witnesses whose identity he made public in one of his books, as the indictment against him alleges. The witness claims he agreed to testify for the prosecution because he was ‘scared by the threats made by the OTP investigators’. After he changed his mind, the witness contacted Seselj’s defense and allowed the publication of the statements he gave to Seselj’s associates

After Seselj persistently refused to comply with a number of Trial Chamber’s orders to withdraw from his website confidential information on protected prosecution witnesses, the Trial Chamber decided to issue the third contempt of court indictment against Vojislav Seselj. This is the fourth indictment against Seselj before the Tribunal

At his initial appearance before a Tribunal judge, Professor Berko Zecevic says the demands he has made to the prosecution regarding his testimony at the trial of Radovan Karadzic have been misunderstood. He did not ‘refuse’ to cooperate, but merely tried to defend his ‘integrity and freedom’. He is ready to testify whenever the court asks him to. The indictment against him has been suspended and will be withdrawn once Professor Zecevic has completed his testimony. He has been released from detention and is now in a hotel

Professor Berko Zecevic faces charges of ‘knowingly and willfully interfering with the administration of justice’ because he refused to testify at the trial of Radovan Karadzic. Zecevic denies that his actions constitute ‘contempt of court’. On the contrary, Professor Berko Zecevic maintains it is ‘contempt of the work of a university professor’ on the part of the prosecutors and judges of the Tribunal

As things stand now, the trial of Jelena Rasic on contempt of court charges will last 15 days. The prosecution has indicated it intends to call 19 witnesses and the defense will have four witnesses. Rasic is a former case manager in Milan Lukic’s defense team