Bosnia genocide conviction: Russia cries foul
Former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic on June 8 lost his appeal of a 2017 conviction for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) at The Hague upheld the life sentence for his role in the killing of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995. The Appeals Chamber also upheld his convictions for the persecution of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, terrorizing the population of Sarajevo with a campaign of shelling and sniping during the nearly four-year siege of the city, and taking UN peacekeepers hostage. The Chamber also reaffirmed his acquittal on charges of carrying out genocide in five other Bosnian municipalities in 1992—a disappointment for surviving residents of Prijedor, Sanski Most, Kotor Varos, Foca and Vlasenica. (BBC News, Balkan Insight, Balkan Insight)
In contrast, Russia's Foreign Ministry protested the upholding of the convictions. Said spokesperson Maria Zakharova: "The conviction of Ratko Mladic has once again demonstrated that the international mechanisms that were established to hold accountable those guilty of crimes committed during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia are in practice biased against one party to the conflict." Zakharova asserted that the verdict against Mladic was hypocritical after The Hague court acquitted Bosnian Croat and Kosovar Albanian defendants.
"[T]he Residual Mechanism and its predecessor, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ignore the facts and historical context of the events related to Yugoslavia’s breakup," she charged. (TASS)
However, Bosnian Croat, Bosnian Muslim and Kosovar Albanian defendants have indeed been convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and other Serbs have been acquitted.
Pro-government tabloids in Serbia also expressed outrage at the final verdict. One, Informer, declared that Mladic is "forever a Serbian hero," who was convicted despite "absolutely no evidence" that he was responsible for "alleged war crimes." Another, Kurir, ran with the headline "Hague injustice for Mladic," while Vecernje Novosti featured a photo of a shocked-looked Mladic with the caption: "They dealt the final blow." (Balkan Insight)
Ratko Mladić, convicted in Srebrenica genocide, dies at 84
Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladić, who commanded forces responsible for one of the worst atrocities in Europe since the 1940s, has died in prison in The Hague aged 84. He led a brutal campaign during the Bosnian war, which began in 1992 as Yugoslavia broke apart. Bosnian Serb forces sought to seize territory and establish a separate Serb-controlled state within Bosnia. In the process, Mladić's forces besieged Sarajevo and murdered more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica, despite UN peacekeepers being stationed nearby. After 16 years on the run, Mladić was arrested in 2011 and, in 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted him of genocide for Srebrenica, among other crimes, sentencing him to life imprisonment. Yet some Bosnian Serbs continue to deny his crimes and see him as a protector during the war, a reminder that securing justice for atrocities does not necessarily bring post-war reconciliation. (TNH)