THE HAGUE, March 28. /TASS/.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has filed an appeal against the verdict made by the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals on March 20, tightening his sentence from 40 years behind bars to life imprisonment. The appeal was made public by the Mechanism’s press service on Thursday.

The document lists eight grounds for filing an appeal and contains the demand to invalidate the previous court decision. "The Majority erred in law by violating President Karadzic’s right to appeal when itself imposing a life sentence, rather than remanding the issue of the appropriate sentence to the Trial Chamber."

"Each error of law invalidated the decision to impose a life sentence and occasioned a miscarriage of justice. The relief sought is an order vacating the life sentence and remanding the matter to a Trial Chamber for re-sentencing," the document states.

Karadzic trial

Karadzic, the former leader of the Bosnian Serbs, spent 13 years as a fugitive before being captured by Serbian intelligence services in a Belgrade suburb in July 2008. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) launched a trial against him in October 2009. In March 2016, Karadzic was found guilty on 10 out of 11 counts, particularly concerning the Srebrenica massacre, and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Karadzic’s defense earlier requested that his 40-year prison sentence be overturned and the case be reviewed.

In response to the appeal, the court has increased Karadzic’s sentence to life in prison on March 20.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals was set up by the United Nations Security Council to complete the work initiated by the ICTY (which closed its proceedings on December 31, 2017) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (closed on December 31, 2015).