‘Butcher of Bosnia’ gets life for massacre of thousands
RATKO MLADIC CONVICTED OF GENOCIDE
An unrepentant Ratko Mladic, the bullish Bosnian Serb general whose forces rained shells and snipers’ bullets on Sarajevo and carried out the worst massacre in Europe since the Second World War, was convicted Wednesday of genocide and other crimes and sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Defiant to the last, Mladic, 74, was ejected from a courtroom at the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal after yelling at judges: “Everything you said is pure lies. Shame on you!”
The man known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” was dispatched to a neighbouring room to watch on a TV screen as presiding judge Alphons Orie pronounced him guilty of 10 counts that also included war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Human- rights organizations hailed the convictions as proof that even top military brass long considered untouchable cannot evade justice forever. Mladic spent years on the run before his arrest in 2011.
It also sent a warning to others — including Bashar Assad, the Syrian president — that the passage of time offered no protection to perpetrators of genocide.
“This landmark verdict marks a significant moment for international justice and sends out a powerful message around the world that impunity cannot and will not be tolerated,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe director.
For prosecutors, it was a fitting end to a 23- year effort to mete out justice at the UN tribunal for atrocities committed during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s. Mladic’s conviction signalled the end of the final trial before the tribunal closes its doors by the end of the year.
But legal battles will continue. Mladic’s attorneys vowed to appeal his convictions on 10 charges related to a string of atrocities from the beginning of the 1992-95 Bosnian war to its bitter end.
Presiding Judge Alphons Orie started the hearing by reading out a litany of horrors perpetrated by forces under Mladic’s control.
“Detainees were forced to rape and engage in other degrading sexual acts with one another. Many Bosnian Muslim women who were unlawfully detained were raped,” Orie said.
The judge recounted the story of a mother who ventured into the streets during the deadly siege of Sarajevo with her son as Serb snipers and artillery targeted the Bosnian capital. She was shot. The bullet passed through her abdomen and struck her 7- year- old son’s head, killing him.
In Srebrenica, the war reached its bloody climax as Bosnian Serb forces overran what was supposed to be a UN- protected safe haven. After busing away women and children, Serb forces systematically murdered some 8,000 Muslim males.
“Many of these men and boys were cursed, insulted, threatened, forced to sing Serb songs and beaten while awaiting their execution,” Orie said.
Mladic looked relaxed as the hearing started, greeting lawyers, crossing himself and giving a thumbs- up to photographers in court. But midway through the hearing Mladic’s lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, asked for a delay because the general was suffering from high blood pressure. The judge refused, Mladic started yelling, and was tossed out of court.
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 10 years before his arrest in Serbia in May, 2011.
The verdict was welcomed by the families of those who died, as well as Fikret Ali whose skeletal features were featured on Time magazine’s front page in 1992, staring out from behind the barbed wire of a detention camp. “Justice has won, and the war criminal has been convicted,” Ali said.
Retired major- general Lewis MacKenzie, who led a UN force in Sarajevo and met Mladic several times, said he was “amazed” that it took six years to bring the man to justice. He said he believed there was plenty of evidence to convict Mladic shortly after he was captured in Serbia in May 2011.