Radovan Stankovic, a Bosnian Serb accused of taking part in the mass rape and enslavement of Bosnian women and girls in Foca in 1992, has become the first accused to be referred by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to a national court. If none of the parties appeals the Hague judges' decision of 17 May 2005, Stankovic will stand trial before the war crimes chamber in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. The ruling should be a confidence boost for the new and inexperienced war crimes court. Suspects and victims both share the concern that trials held at national courts in former Yugoslavia could be subject to bias. In this case, however, the judges considered that there is a good basis for a fair trial. Republika Srpksa is involved in the selection process of the court in Sarajevo and foreign judges will sit in the criminal division and war crimes chamber. Another safeguard is the fact that the prosecutor can apply to revoke the referral and may send observers to the trials. The death penalty cannot be handed down and pre-trial custody cannot last longer than a year, which is a major departure from practice at UN tribunals. Stankovic has been in pre-trial detention for almost three years already. Carla del Ponte has requested the referral of 17 similar cases to national courts. In a speech to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on 19 May, the chief prosecutor said that she is preparing the referral of 60 cases for which investigations have been conducted, but no indictments issued. The referral process is part of the ICTY's overall strategy to complete its work before 2010.