Wartime Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic, the last fugitive wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), will be tried even if arrested after the tribunal's closure, a spokeswoman said here Thursday.
Hadzic, who is wanted for war crimes committed during the 1991-1995 war in Croatia, will be tried under a residual mechanism if he is not arrested by June 2012.
June next year is the deadline for enough time for the ICTY to come to a verdict before its mandate runs out in late 2014.
"The residual mechanism will not be able to issue new indictments like the ICTY," Nerma Jelacic said.
However, the mechanism, to be launched in June 2013, will deal with appeals after June 2013 and possibly a trial of Hadzic if he is finally arrested, Beta news agency quoted Jelacic as saying.
The Hague-based ICTY is a UN court established in 1993 by the Security Council, which has been trying top and mid-level officials suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide during the Balkans wars in 1990s.
The end of the court's mandate is planned for December 2014.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution last December ordering setting up the residual mechanism to finish any work the court would not able to complete when it closes down.
Following last month's arrest of the top wanted suspect, Bosnian Serb wartime military chief Ratko Mladic, Hadzic, 52, is the last suspect at large.
Source: AFP
Lead photo - Wodnerduck on flickr.com - all further use subject to this CC licence
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