Judges warned Friday that Radovan Karadzic's genocide trial could stretch into 2014 — two years longer than expected — if prosecutors and the former Bosnian Serb leader do not speed up the case.
Karadzic's American lawyer said the landmark trial could last even longer than that, and urged judges to slash away a major part of the indictment if they want to rein in the case against the accused, who faces 11 charges, including two counts of genocide, for allegedly masterminding Serb atrocities throughout the Bosnian war.
Recall that the Bosnian war ended in 1995 after we led an intervention to end the killing spree.
And this trial could still be going two decades after the end of the fighting. At best on the time issue, if some of the charges are dropped to speed it up, the trial will not quite reach that milestone.
Karadzic will die in his sleep unconvicted. But that's the way international justice works. Even when they manage to latch on to an actual bad guy guilty of felony crimes as opposed to taking on the easier targets in the West for misdemeanor offenses or made-up crimes, they take so long that the concept of providing justice is a mockery.
I remain grateful that we handed over Saddam to the Iraqis who executed him after a speedy trial rather than turn the man over to the UN for trial.
