Mladic guilty of genocide
UN court convicts former Bosnian Serb general of crimes against humanity
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS— 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 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 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.
“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.
Lewis MacKenzie, a retired Canadian major-general who led a United Nations force in Sarajevo, commended the decision. But MacKenzie, who met Mladic several times when he commanded a peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said he is “amazed” that it took six years to bring the man known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” to justice.
McKenzie said the fact that it took that long is “not a great endorsement” of the UN’s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.
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 lawyers vowed to appeal his convictions on 10 charges related to a string of atrocities from the beginning of the1992-95 Bosnian war to its bitter end.
“The defence team considers this judgment to be erroneous, and there will be an appeal, and we believe that the appeal will correct the errors of the trial chamber,” Mladic lawyer Dragan Ivetic said.
Mladic’s son, Darko, said his father told him after the verdict that the tribunal was a “NATO commission . . . trying to criminalize a legal endeavour of Serbian people in times of civil war to protect itself from the aggression.”