Association of victims and witnesses of genocide expect a UN's court to expand the first-instance verdict and to convict former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide in the town of Prijedor, said association chairman Murat Tahirovic.

The Appeals Chamber of UN's International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals is set to pronounce the final verdict on March 20.

“We are convinced that all items of the indictment from the first-instance verdict to Karadzic will remain,” said Tahirovic.

According to him, it should happen by no means that what the court initially ruled as a judgement in this case is reduced.

The former President of wartime Republika Srpska (RS), now a Serb-dominated semi-autonomous entity within Bosnia, was sentenced on March 24, 2016, to 40 years in prison by the now-closed International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

He was convicted of various crimes against humanity, including the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks and Croats, the siege of Sarajevo, the Srebrenica genocide and taking the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) hostages during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

He was acquitted of genocide charged in other municipalities in Bosnia.

Karadzic's defence team said following the first-instance verdict that the initial trial was unfair and called for a re-trial, which was rejected. Karadzic also personally addressed the Court, describing the crimes he was convicted of as a “myth.”

Both Karadzic and the prosecution appealed the 2016 judgement.

The initial indictment against Karadzic was confirmed on July 25, 1995. He was arrested in Serbia on July 21, 2008, and transferred to the ICTY a few days later. The trial commenced on October 26, 2009, and 586 in-court testimonies were heard by the Trial Chamber.