European Forum

Former spokeswomen of ICTY on trial for quoting confidential court documents

Florence Hartmann, former employee of the International Criminal Court for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), is charged with contempt of court for having quoted in her book and article from confidential documents of the Milosevic trial. The documents contained information about the military command structure of Serbia according to which the ICTY judges concluded that Milosevic was without any doubt a member of a criminal organisation with the intent to destroy Bosnian Muslims as a group, not just in Srebrenica but also in other towns in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH). Furthermore, it was concluded from the notes that Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian-Serb military leader and war crime fugitive, did not just receive men and weapons from Belgrade, but his orders as well.

For quoting confidential court documents or revealing their existence, Hartmann could possibly be sentenced up to seven years in prison or a 100.000 Euro fine. The judges declared the documents as confidential, as releasing them could be a threat to the national security of Serbia and Montenegro. Hartman, however, argues that by keeping these crucial documents as confidential ICTY judges are shielding Serbia and undermining the case of BiH versus Serbia before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Namely in 2007, the ICJ ruled that no genocide had taken place in BiH, except in Srebrenica, and that Serbia was held only indirectly responsible for what happened there. According to some observers, the confident documents would shed another light on the responsibility and involvement of Serbia in the war in BiH and eventually lead to a sentence to billions of euros in damages to BiH. In addition, the case could set an important precedent because a number of ICTY employees have written about the working of the court.

Hartmann, who was the spokeswomen for chief prosecutor of ICTY Carla del Ponte for six years, argues that she is innocent because the information was already in the public domain before either her book or article were published.

Source: NRC, Radio Slobodna Evropa and Parool