Karadzic wants Papoulias to testify at genocide trial

Bosnian-Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic has asked Greek President Karolos Papoulias to testify at the Hague-based International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in his defense.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that President Papoulias has information which can materially assist,” Karadzic said in a document submitted to the court.

“Because of the religious and historical ties between Greece and the Serbs, President Papoulias was one of the few international interlocutors whom the Bosnian Serbs trusted and with whom they could speak confidentially and candidly,” he said.

Karadzic, 67, faces 10 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in Bosnia’s 1992-95 war that left 100,000 dead. Papoulias was Greece’s foreign minister from 1993 to 1996. Evidence by Papoulias, Karadzic said, would allow him to establish his innocence for the shelling of Sarajevo’s Markale market on February 5, 1994, in which 67 people died.

Πηγή: ekathimerini.com