Mladic trial nears end, far from Bosnia’s killing fields

THE HAGUE: The protracted and complicated trial of notorious former Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, once dubbed the ‘ Butcher of Bosnia’, reaches a climax next week more than 20 years after the war.

Closing arguments will begin Monday in the case in which Mladic, 74, has denied 11 charges including two of genocide, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the bloody 1992- 95 Bosnian conflict.

More than 100,000 people died and 2.2 million others were left homeless in the conflict, one of several that erupted as the former Yugoslavia fell apart.

Far from the battlefields which once scarred Bosnia in Europe’s worst bloodshed since World War II, the prosecution will have three days to present its closing arguments from Monday, followed by the defence which will address the court from Friday.

Indicted in July 1995, Mladic has been behind bars in a UN detention unit in The Hague since May 2011 when he was found in a relative’s house in northeastern Serbia.

He had spent 16 years evading capture, initially living openly despite an international arrest warrant until going underground in 2000 once former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic was ousted.

Prosecutors at the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ( ICTY) allege Mladic “significantly contributed to an over arching joint criminal enterprise” from October 1991 until 30 November 1995.

The aim was “the permanent removal of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb- claimed territory” in Bosnia Hercegovina. — AFP