Karadzic jailed for 40 years
40-year jail for Serbian leader for genocide and crime against humanity
the hague — UN war crimes judges on Thursday found former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic guilty of genocide and sentenced him to 40 years in jail over the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II. Karadzic will appeal the conviction, his legal adviser said.
The court said Karadzic, the most high-profile figure convicted over the wars that tore Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s, bore criminal responsibility for murder and persecution in the Bosnian conflict.
Judge O-Gon Kwon said the court in The Hague found Karadzic guilty of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and nine other charges of murder, persecution, and hostage-taking.
But in what will be a blow to thousands of victims, the court said it did not have enough evidence to prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that genocide had been committed in seven Bosnian towns and villages over two decades ago.
It marks the end of a marathon trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for Karadzic’s role during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war that claimed more than 100,000 lives and displaced 2.2 million others.
The 70-year- old listened stony-faced as Kwon said it was clear Karadzic bore “individual criminal responsibility” for murder, persecution as well as the hostage-taking of UN peacekeepers.
Karadzic “was at the apex of political, governmental and military structures” of the Bosnian Serb leadership and “at the forefront of developing and promoting its ideologies”, Kwon said.
UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein hailed the verdict as “hugely significant”.
Karadzic was accused of taking part in a joint criminal scheme to “permanently remove Muslim and Bosnian Croat inhabitants... from areas claimed as Bosnian Serb territory”. This was done through a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing, indiscriminate killings, persecutions and terror. —
the hague — Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in jail by UN judges who found him guilty of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and of nine other war crimes charges.
Karadzic, 70, the most senior political figure to be convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, was found guilty of 10 out of 11 war charges. He was acquitted of a second count of genocide in various towns across Bosnia during the war of the 1990s.
The judges said Karadzic was criminally responsible for the siege of Sarajevo and had committed crimes against humanity in Bosnian towns. They said he had intended to eliminate the Bosnian Muslim males in the town of Srebrenica, where 8,000 Muslims died in Europe’s worst war crime since World War II.
Presiding judge O-Gon Kwon said the three-year Sarajevo siege, during which the city was shelled and sniped at by besieging Bosnian Serb forces, could not have happened without Karadzic’s support.
His sentence will be reduced by slightly more than 7 years for time already spent in detention. It will be served in an as yet undetermined state prison. He is expected to appeal, a process that could take several more years.
As the judges described the siege of Sarajevo, Karadzic looked pained and his face tightened into a grimace. Victims’ families in the courtroom, some of then elderly, listened intently when the genocide at Srebrenica was discussed. One wiped away tears as the judge described men and boys being separated from their families.
After that, Karadzic stared ahead vacantly. When he was ordered to stand for sentencing, he listened with eyes mostly downcast. After the sentence was read and judges departed, he sat back heavily in his chair. After the hearing was closed, several victims’ families embraced before quietly leaving the courtroom.
Karadzic was arrested in 2008 after 11 years on the run, following a war in which 100,000 people were killed as rival armies carved Bosnia up along ethnic lines that largely survive today.
He headed the self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic and was Supreme Commander of its armed forces. Serbian Prime Minister Alek- sandar Vucic said he would stand by the Serbs of Bosnia.
“We will stand by our people and we will protect their existence and their right to have their own state,” he said.
ICTY prosecutor Serge Bram- mertz said the world had decided that victims in the former Yugoslavia deserved justice.
“For two decades now, those victims have put their trust in us to deliver it. Thousands came here to tell their stories and courageously con- front their tormentors. Today, with this conviction, that trust has been honoured. Justice has been done.”
The only more senior official to face justice before the Tribunal was the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who died in custody a decade ago before a verdict was reached. Ratko Mladic, the general who commanded Bosnian Serb forces, was the last suspect to be detained over the Srebrenica slaughter and is also in a UN cell awaiting judgment.