IRMCT Again Tells U.N. Security Council that Serbia Should Extradite Radicals Jojic and Radeta

Carmel Agius at the U.N. Security Council Meeting (BetaPhoto/SC Chamber/UN Photo/Mark Garten)

The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) has again called on Serbia to extradite Serbian Radical Party officials Petar Jojic and Vjerica Radeta, accused of contempt of the Mechanism.

Delivering his regular report to the United Nations Security Council in New York in the evening of Dec. 13, IRMCT President Carmel Agius stressed that the extradition was Serbia's "international obligation."

"The Mechanism again calls on Serbia to fulfill its international obligation to arrest and surrender Petar Jojic and Vjerica Radeta," Judge Agius told the Security Council.

Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly in late October, Agius addressed the Serbian government and requested that Belgrade execute the arrest warrants for Jojic and Radeta. So far, Agius has reported Serbia to the Security Council three times for the country's failure to comply with the warrants.

In 2012, the Mechanism accused Jojic and Radeta of influencing witnesses in its trial of Radical party leader Vojislav Seselj. Specifically, Jojic and Radeta, both members of Seselj's defense team, are suspected of threatening, blackmailing and bribing witnesses into altering their statements or refusing to testify.

Since 2015, when the Mechanism issued its first arrest warrant for their arrest, the Serbian authorities have refused to apprehend and extradite Jojic and Radeta. On more than one occasion, Belgrade has offered to try the two in Serbia, but this solution was dismissed by the Mechanism, which insists that both Serbian and international law stipulate that the country is obligated to cooperate in matters of contempt, as it has done in the past.