The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Serge Brammertz, has said that the trial of former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic would be expedited, declining to confirm that the reason for that was Mladic's health condition.
The Prosecutor's Office will do everything possible for the Mladic trial to be expedited. In the near future we will submit filings in order to accelerate the procedure, Bramertz was quoted as saying by the Sarajevo-based Dnevni Avaz daily on Tuesday.
He declined to comment on unofficial information that Mladic's condition has deteriorated, saying that those questions should be addressed to the ICTY Secretariat.
Mladic's attorney Milos Saljic told the Serbian news agency Tanjug on Monday that his client suffered from pneumonia and that he was hospitalised.
I can tell you that the ICTY is operating in accordance with the highest international standards and medical staff is providing the necessary medical care to indictees in the detention unit, Brammertz said.
Brammertz reiterated that even after the arrest of Mladic and Goran Hadzic, the priority of the ICTY prosecutor's Office remained to establish who was aiding and abetting the two when they were on the run.
