UN judges will decide tomorrow, in a test case, whether a journalist will be forced to testify at The Hague war crimes tribunal.
The tribunal's appeals court is to rule on a challenge by former Washington Postreporter Jonathan Randal against a trial chamber decision in June compelling him to give evidence at ex-Bosnian Serb Deputy Prime Minister Radoslav Brdjanin's trial.
Randal has refused to testify in the landmark case, with his lawyers arguing it would endanger war correspondents and hamper their ability to cover the fighting.
Brdjanin was charged along with General Momir Talic with playing a pivotal role in deporting, torturing and murdering Croats and Muslims during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Randal, who interviewed Brdjanin during the war and quoted him as saying he wanted to get rid of the non-Serb population in Banja Luka in an article in The Washington Postin February 1993, is seeking to overturn the trial chamber's decision.
Prosecutors submitted Randal's interview as evidence in January but defence lawyers demanded the right to cross-examine Randal about the interview. Brdjanin said he had been misquoted.
Randal - who said the interview was accurate - has argued that compelling reporters to testify at such trials could make them targets in war zones, undermine their independence, limit their access to information and put sources at risk.
"Mr Randal....believes that making war correspondents 'routinely compellable' in this way will put them and their sources at risk and will compromise their impartiality in the eyes of the world," Randal's lawyers at UK law firm Finers Stephens Innocent said in a statement.