L.A. Lawyer to Defend Chief of Bosnian Serbs

Veteran Los Angeles lawyer Edward M. Medvene has handled complex cases and controversial clients in his 35-year career. But he recently took on his greatest legal challenge, and quite likely his most unpopular client, by agreeing to defend Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic against charges that he ordered the “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Medvene met with Karadzic in Bosnia for two days last week, then made his first appearance on behalf of his new client at The Hague, where an international war crimes tribunal heard eight days of evidence against him and Bosnian Serb military leader Gen. Ratko Mladic.

In an interview from his Century City law office, and in a motion filed Friday at The Hague, Medvene asserted that his client has been denied basic due process.

Medvene, 65, readily acknowledged that his client, who has been excoriated worldwide, might land him in controversy of a magnitude considerably greater than anything he has previously experienced. But “you have to do what you think is right,” Medvene said.

“The allegations are so emotionally charged. I just think it’s the highest calling to represent someone that so many people have prejudged, without knowing the facts--and I’m not suggesting that I know all the facts,” Medvene stressed.

Both Karadzic and Mladic have been indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war and breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Prosecutors have alleged that Karadzic is particularly culpable because he has had responsibility for both civil and military leadership.

“It’s very important, in terms of the legal system, that we deal with everyone fairly,” Medvene said. “If people who are despised don’t get the same right as popular people, all of us may lose those rights we think are so precious.”

Moreover, he said, representing Karadzic “is a chance to participate in history.”

The recent hearings at The Hague were designed to show that the war in Bosnia was a systematic, well-orchestrated campaign to wipe out the country’s non-Serbs.

*

“There can be no doubt that both Dr. Karadzic, the supreme commander, and Gen. Mladic, the commander of the army, could have stopped this killing whenever they wanted,” prosecutor Mark Harmon asserted Monday in closing statements. He said that both men had signed numerous cease-fire and anti-sniping agreements. “Both of the accused had the power to turn off this spigot but chose to leave it on” throughout most of the conflict, Harmon said.

The three-judge tribunal is expected to decide Thursday whether to issue the U.S. equivalent of arrest warrants.

Medvene said that if Karadzic goes to trial, it will be “an immense undertaking, just because of the novel issues of law and the intricacies of the factual issues.”

Medvene’s law partners--including Daniel Petrocelli, the lead attorney representing Fred Goldman in his civil suit against O.J. Simpson--praised their colleague as one of the top lawyers in the country. But his large firm has distanced itself from the Karadzic case.

“Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp has made a determination not to get involved in this case,” said managing partner William L. Cole. “Mr. Medvene went to Europe on an exploratory basis on his own to determine whether he wanted to get involved as an individual.”

Karadzic is hardly Medvene’s first notorious client. For several years, starting in 1989, Medvene was the lead defense lawyer for Mexican businessman Ruben Zuno Arce, who was accused of being one of the men who orchestrated the 1985 kidnapping, torture and murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena.

After a highly contentious trial, Zuno was convicted, but U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie threw out the conviction after Medvene argued that a prosecutor had made improper statements during closing arguments. But Zuno was convicted again at a retrial and sentenced to life in a federal prison.

Many of Medvene’s other high- profile cases have turned out more successfully. Twenty years ago, he was one of the lawyers who successfully represented the plaintiffs who contended that Los Angeles schools were illegally segregated.

In 1985, he persuaded a Los Angeles jury to acquit former Olympic gold medalist Edwin Moses on charges that he had solicited a prostitute.

He also won an appeal for the Los Angeles Ethics Commission, establishing that the commission should have wide latitude in its investigations.

*

Most recently, Medvene has been playing a key role in the civil suit against Simpson. In the interview, he said that he planned to fulfill his responsibilities--including the handling of police and forensic witnesses--in that trial, which is scheduled to start in September.

A 1957 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Medvene served as a federal prosecutor before going into private practice.

In the interview he said it was a little less than a month ago that he was approached by an intermediary--whose identity he would not disclose--about representing Karadzic. Medvene said he told the person that he was interested but could not make a final decision until after he met Karadzic.

Soon thereafter, he said, Karadzic called him and they had several phone conversations before making arrangements for Medvene to fly to the war-ravaged country for a meeting.

Medvene said he flew to the Serbian capital of Belgrade on June 29. Then he and another Los Angeles lawyer, Thomas F. Hanley III, whose firm has done commercial legal work in the Balkans, drove five hours to Pale, the capital of the self-styled Republic of Srpska, to meet Karadzic.

Medvene said he spent part of Monday and Tuesday discussing the case with Karadzic and decided he would represent him.

When asked if there was anything in his meeting with Karadzic that made him decide to take the case, Medvene said there was no one thing in particular. “He appeared to me, contrary to the charges, to be someone who was willing to discuss the issues and was willing to be frank and open with you in terms of his side of the situation.”

Once at The Hague, Medvene quickly drafted a motion seeking to represent Karadzic’s interests without his client appearing.

Medvene said he did not think that Karadzic will voluntarily submit himself to the jurisdiction of the war crimes tribunal unless he becomes convinced that its procedures are fair from his point of view.