I have just given a short interview to Radio Free Europe in Sarajevo about the Ganic problem.

The interviewer asked a question about the abuse of UK courts for political purposes. I pointed out that there are two completely different issues here, which may (understandably) be merging into one in the public mind:

  • extradition requests filed by other states, which may or may not involve foreign leaders (Ganic situation): these are played out under the relevant detailed Extradition legislation
  • private prosecutions (eg for war crimes) of visiting foreign leaders attempted by UK-based ‘activists’ as politically motivated lawfare. See the recent Israel episode. That was what Gordon Brown has written about today. 

I also pointed out that HM Government took war crimes issues very seriously – see eg the first action in Bosnia by NATO to round up ICTY indictees in 1997, which had been fatuously denounced in Sarajevo as a pro-Serb ploy even though the SAS killed a leading Bosnia Serb indictee in the process.

So (I said) it was not surprising that a British court confronted with some evidence that the Bosnian leader concerned had played a direct part in the killing of up to 40 people in a UN convoy might take the case very seriously. If it went to substantive hearings a rare battle would ensue, with top lawyers arguing the extradition case on its merits. I added that it remained to be seen whether the Bosnian application for Mr Ganic’s extradition would help or hinder his case – were they really going to present him as a war-crimes suspect..?