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Former army commander sentenced to life in prison, after he is dragged from court over outburst
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‘The crimes committed rank among the most heinous known to humankind’
THE HAGUE: Ratko Mladic, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb army, was sentenced on Wednesday to life imprisonment after a United Nations special court found him guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity that it labeled as some of the most heinous in human history.
Mladic, 75, was found guilty by the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal of leading forces responsible for crimes including the worst atrocities of Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war — the deadly three-year siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern enclave of Srebrenica, which was Europe’s worst mass killing since World War II.
“The crimes committed rank among the most heinous known to humankind,” Presiding Judge Alphons Orie said when reading out the court’s judgment. Mladic’s lawyers said that they planned to appeal. The convictions were hailed as a victory for international justice by the court’s prosecutor and rights groups.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called Mladic, the epitome of evil and described the prosecution as the epitome of what international justice is all about. He said that the verdict should serve as a warning to other perpetrators of atrocities that they will not escape justice, no matter how powerful they may be nor how long it may take.
“They will be held accountable.” A three-judge panel at the court, formally known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, convicted Mladic of 10 of 11 counts in a dramatic climax to a groundbreaking effort to seek justice for the wars in the former multi-ethnic federation. Presiding Judge Orie read key parts of the judgment on Wednesday after ordering Mladic out of the courtroom for the final verdict over an angry outburst.
Survivors known as the Mothers of Srebrenica, clapped when the convictions were read out. “I’m not surprised. The court was totally biased from the start,” said Darko Mladic, son of the convicted former general, while dismissing the convictions. He said that he judges obstructed defence lawyers in presenting evidence exculpating his father.
“This judgment is wrong, it does not achieve anything… and will be an obstacle to future normal life in the region,” he said. Bosniaks and Serbs watched from near and far as the long-awaited climax approached. The judgment marks the end of the final trial at the tribunal, which was set up in 1993, while fierce fighting was still raging in Bosnia. The court will close its doors by the end of the year.
Emotions ran high outside the courtroom, with a small skirmish reflecting lingering tensions between Serbs and Bosniaks over the trial and the war. Despite ailing health, Mladic looked relaxed, greeting lawyers, crossing himself and giving a thumbs-up to photographers in the court. He nodded regularly as Orie read out descriptions of atrocities by Bosnian Serb forces, one by one.
But midway through the hearing Mladic’s lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, asked for a delay because the general was suffering high blood pressure. The judge refused, and Mladic burst out with criticism and was manhandled out of the room by guards to watch the remainder of the hearing in a separate room via a video link. “I was not impressed,” Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said.
“I think that many of the survivors in the courtroom and seeing him had also very high blood pressure and, as you have seen when he left, when he started speaking, it was not about his health but much more I think trying to insult the judges.” Orie said that the court confirmed that genocide, persecution, extermination, murder and the inhuman act of forcible transfer were committed in or around Srebrenica in 1995.
Previous judgments have said it was genocide. However, Orie said the court is not convinced of genocidal intent in six other municipalities, in line with previous judgments. Brammertz said that he would study the lengthy written judgment before deciding whether to appeal the single acquittal.
The conflict in the former Yugoslavia erupted after the country’s breakup in the early 1990s, with the worst crimes taking place in Bosnia. More than 100,000 people died and millions lost their homes before a peace agreement was signed in 1995. Mladic went into hiding for around ten years before his arrest in Serbia in May 2011.
