The defense of General Ratko Mladić has requested from the court in The Hague that Mladić be urgently released on temporary or conditional liberty for humanitarian reasons, given that he suffers from an incurable disease and is approaching the end of his life.
In the request published today, which was submitted yesterday, the defense emphasized that Mladić’s health is “irreversibly” impaired as a result of the latest “medical incident” he survived in April and that he is “approaching the end of his life.”
Defense representatives specified in the request that General Mladić suffers from “chronic heart and kidney failure, diabetes, and strokes” and that he cannot communicate, which is why it is necessary for him to be under 24-hour medical supervision, which is impossible in the palliative care unit in the detention of the court in The Hague.
The former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, General Mladić (84), is serving a life sentence to which the Hague Tribunal sentenced him for genocide and war crimes against Muslims and Croats during the war in BiH, 1992-95.
Mladić’s defense had already submitted a request for his release from detention in Scheveningen on April 23, but yesterday sent an urgency to the court.
This week, the president of the Hague court, Graciela Gatti Santana, ordered that General Mladić be examined by independent specialist doctors.
Judge Santana should receive the report from those specialists today, and will then decide whether sufficient humanitarian reasons exist for Mladić to be released on temporary liberty.
The president of the Hague court confirmed that Mladić was “transferred to the emergency center of a civilian hospital on April 17, from which he was discharged the same day in ‘stable condition’.”
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In the report regarding this, doctors informed Judge Gatti Santana about the “steps they subsequently took in treating a ‘potentially curable cause’.”
Defense representatives in the request published today specify that Mladić spends most of his time in a wheelchair or in bed and that therefore there is no risk of his eventual escape if he were to be released.
According to defense attorney Dragan Ivetić, on April 17, during a conversation with his son Darko via video link, Mladić experienced an “acute neurological” symptom of loss of the power of speech, which is why he was urgently transferred to the hospital.
“On the first day after returning from the hospital, Mladić spoke better, but since then he has been unintelligible and unable to speak,” reads the defense request, which specifies that, according to doctors, Mladić survived a “stroke.”
Attorney Ivetić refers to the findings of two Serbian doctors who visited Mladić on April 22 and determined that his life is in danger and that the “risk of imminent death is high,” and that appropriate palliative care cannot be provided to him in the prison hospital.
Because of this, the defense requested that General Mladić be urgently released to a hospital at a location that has been redacted in the request.
Judge Santana already rejected an identical request from Mladić’s defense at the end of July last year.
In that decision, she confirmed that, according to doctors, Mladić is “approaching the end of his life,” but concluded that the general in detention in The Hague “receives comprehensive and compassionate care.”
The former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, General Mladić, was sentenced before the Hague Tribunal to life imprisonment for the genocide in Srebrenica and crimes against humanity against Muslims and Croats in BiH, including the terrorizing of civilians in Sarajevo, 1992-95.
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Source: Nova.rs; Photo: EPA