Agius Tells U.N. Security Council Serbia Refusing to Arrest and Extradite Serbian Radical Party Members

Carmel Agius

In his address to the U.N. Security Council Carmel Agius, president of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, said on June 8 that Serbia continues to fail to arrest and hand over to the court Petar Jojic and Vjerica Radeta, charged with contempt of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, of which the IRMCT is a successor. 

The two Serbian Radical Party officials were charged with illicitly influencing witnesses in the trial the ICTY conducted against that party leader, Vojislav Seselj.

In his regular report to the U.N. Security Council, Agius said that “the Republic of Serbia continues to fail to fulfill its international obligations, arrest Petar Jojic and Vjerica Radeta and surrender them to the IRMCT” in The Hague. 

Agius warned that Serbia’s failure to act on the order to arrest Jojic and Radeta “not only undermines the efficient implementation of justice before the IRMCT, but is spiting the international community and challenging the authority of the Security Council and the U.N. Charter.” 

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic denied at the same Security Council session that Belgrade is ignoring its obligations toward the international court in The Hague. He said that Serbia “takes seriously” its obligations toward the ICTY’s successor, adding that the Higher Court in Belgrade had ruled that the conditions for the arrest and extradition of the two former MPs had not been met, and that such a decision is binding for the authorities in Serbia.