Serbian butcher guilty of genocide
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — An unrepentant Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general whose forces rained shells and snipers’ bullets on Sarajevo and carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, was convicted Wednesday of genocide and sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Defiant to the last, Mladic 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!”
He was dispatched to a neighboring 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.
“This landmark verdict marks a significant moment for international justice and sends out a pow- erful 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 for atrocities committed during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s. Mladic’s conviction signaled the end of the final trial. Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic was also convicted last year of genocide, while former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died in his UN cell in 2006 before judges could reach a verdict.
The 1992-95 Bosnian war reached its bloody climax in Srebrenica, where Mladic’s forces systematically murdered some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.