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Serb war criminal earned £100,000 in legal aid scam

Vesna Peric Zimonjic
Friday 12 July 2002 00:00 BST
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The international war crimes tribunal is cracking down on a legal aid scheme after the family of a convicted Bosnian Serb benefited from a €200,000 (£130,000) windfall.

The system was set up by the court in The Hague to cover the expenses of those indicted for war crimes if they cannot meet their costs.

A fee-splitting practice initially provided 10 per cent for the defendant with 90 per cent going to the lawyer in the early days of the court in 1993. But well-informed sources close to the tribunal said people accused of crimes were now receiving as much as 40 per cent of the legal fees.

Court officials in The Hague are considering calling a halt to the fee-splitting scheme after the sudden enrichment of the family of Zoran Zigic. He was sentenced last November to 25 years in jail after being as convicted for war crimes against non-Serbs in 1992 in the Omarska and Keraterm camps in Bosnia.

Tribunal investigators found that the Zigic family purchased two apartments in November 1998 and April 2000, a commercial firm in July 2001 and three transport vehicles worth €126,196 (£81,000). The total sum "earned" by Mr Zigic stands at €178,280 (£114,000).

Mr Zigic's attorneys, Simo Tosic from the Bosnian Serb town of Banjaluka and Slobodan Stojanovic from Belgrade, have denied any wrongdoing, saying they were helping their client "within the limits of usual cooperation".

A lawyer and his team of up to three assistants can earn £130,000per trial for a short case. The more important and longer trials bring some £240,000 in lawyers' fees. Under a special agreement between the UN and the Netherlands, which hosts the tribunal, the money is tax free.

According to the sources, the indictees choose a lawyer depending on his generosity and the bargaining begins.

It seems it was Mr Zigic's demand for an additional £21,000for an appeal that attracted the attention of the tribunal's financial investigators. The court refused to allocate the extra money and ruled that "abuses of the legal aid system will not be tolerated".

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader on trial in The Hague, will not be splitting a defence fee with anyone as he refused an attorney and is defending himself.

¿ Another former president, Zoran Lilic, was detained yesterday and flown to The Hague to testify before the UN war crimes tribunal against his successor, Mr Milosevic, Mr Lilic?s wife and lawyer said.

¿ Women who lost their loved ones in the Srebrenica massacre gathered yesterday to mark the seventh anniversary of the slaughter of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. About 2,000 mourners took part in a memorial service at the scene of what is widely considered to be Europe's worst atrocity since the Second World War.

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