The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the case of Ratko Mladic on Friday adopted the prosecution's proposal to reduce the scope of the indictment against the Bosnian Serb wartime military commander and to limit its presentation of evidence to a selection of 106 crimes instead of 196 initially scheduled in the indictment.
"The Chamber finds that the incidents selected by the Prosecution are reasonable representative of the crimes charged in the Operative Indictment," the Trial Chamber said in its ruling, giving the prosecution two weeks to file an amended indictment and amended lists of victims. The judges also agreed to the prosecution's proposal to reduce the number of municipalities covered by the indictment from 23 to 15.
The ICTY in October dismissed the prosecution motion to split the Mladic case into two trials -- one for the Srebrenica genocide and the other for the years-long siege of Sarajevo, crimes committed by Bosnian Serb forces elsewhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and for taking UN personnel hostage.
The prosecution, having learned from experience in the case of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, who died while on trial simultaneously for crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, moved for the separation of the Mladic indictment, recommending that a trial for Srebrenica be held first.
Mladic, 68, has frequently complained of poor health. He was on the run for 16 years during which he suffered a stroke. He was arrested in Serbia in late May.
