The final verdict against Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS) General Staff, will be handed down on June 8, 2021, according to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts in The Hague.
The final verdict will be handed down by Judges Prisca Matimba Nyambe, Aminatta Lois Runeni N’gum, Seymour Panton, Elizabeth Ibanda-Nahamya and newly appointed Judge Mustapha el-Baaj.
The indictment against Ratko Mladic was filed on July 24 and November 16, 1995. He was arrested in Serbia on May 26, 2011, almost eleven years after the first indictments were filed. His trial began on May 16, 2012, and the presentation of evidence lasted for more than four years. The parties in the proceedings presented their closing arguments from December 5 to 15, 2016. On November 22, 2017, the young man was sentenced to life imprisonment by the first instance verdict of the Hague Tribunal.
The Chamber sat for 530 days of trial, during which it was presented with the testimony of 592 witnesses and nearly 10,000 exhibits. The Chamber also formally took note of approximately 2,000 adjudicated facts.
The indictee was tried on 11 counts of crimes he allegedly committed as commander of the General Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army, after the VRS, from 12 May 1992 to 30 November 1995. The indictment charges Mladic with two counts of genocide and five counts of crimes against humanity, such as persecution, murder, extermination, deportation and inhumane acts of forcible transfer. The indictment also charges the accused with four counts of violating the laws or customs of war, namely murder, acts of violence with the primary goal of spreading terror among the civilian population, unlawful attacks on civilians and taking hostages. The geographical framework of the indictment covers Sarajevo, Srebrenica and 15 municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Summary of the first instance verdict
In a summary of Trial Chamber Judgment Ratko Mladic, the Prosecution alleges that the Accused participated in four joint criminal enterprises, the JCE. First, a comprehensive JCE aimed at the permanent removal of Bosniaks and Croats from Serb-claimed areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina by committing the crimes charged in the indictment, including genocide, persecution, extermination, murder, inhumane acts forced relocation and deportation.
Second, the JCE related to Sarajevo, which aimed to spread terror among the civilian population through a campaign of sniping and shelling, including - as charged in the indictment - through murder and acts of violence with the primary purpose of spreading terror among the civilian population and unlawful attacks on civilians.
Third, the JCE related to Srebrenica, which aimed to eliminate Bosniaks in Srebrenica through the crimes charged in the indictment, including genocide, persecution, extermination, murder, inhumane acts of forcible transfer and deportation.
Fourth, the JCE relating to hostage-taking, aimed at taking UN hostages to prevent NATO from carrying out airstrikes on Bosnian Serb military targets, was committed as a war crime.
In concrete terms, Ratko Mladic was the commander of the General Staff of the Republika Srpska Army, an army whose four-and-a-half years of operations and operations left the destroyed Bosnian society, killing more than 100,000 people, wounding 500,000, expelling 1,000,000, raping more than 30,000 women and killing 15,000. children, 300 camps were organized, 600 mass graves were formed, 614 mosques were destroyed, inestimable material damage was done and other incurable trauma.
All of the above is a crime of destruction of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a cultural and political whole that has a long duration, with eruptions of killing, persecution and destruction being only his most visible statements. Such a crime is not possible without a comprehensive structure that includes criminal elites, criminal ideologies, criminal organizations, and perpetrators. The effects of this crime concern all of us, and most of all those who commit them.
The Prosecution charges the Accused Ratko Mladić as a superior, pursuant to Article 7 (3) of the Statute.
Having considered all the facts, evidence and arguments of the parties, taking into account the Statute and the Rules, and on the basis of the factual and legal findings set out in detail in the written judgment, the Chamber found Ratko Mladic guilty as a participant in various joint criminal proceedings. undertaking, on the following counts: count 2, genocide; count 3, persecution, crime against humanity; count 4, extermination, crime against humanity; count 5, murder, crime against humanity; count 6, murder, violation of the laws or customs of war; count 7, deportation, crime against humanity; count 8, inhumane act of forcible transfer, crime against humanity; Count 9, terrorism, violation of the laws or customs of war; count 10, unlawful attacks on civilians, violation of the laws or customs of war; count 11, hostage-taking, violation of the laws or customs of war.
For the crimes he committed, the Chamber sentenced Ratko Mladic to life in prison in the first instance verdict.
In August 2020, appeals were filed against the verdict. The defense then requested a verdict of acquittal on all counts of the indictment, while the prosecution requested that Ratko Mladic be found guilty of genocide in five other municipalities - Prijedor, Sanski Most, Foca, Kotor-Varos and Vlasenica.
Genocide against Bosniaks - a scientific, legal and historical fact
Judges of the International Residual Mechanism in The Hague will probably confirm the life sentence on June 8, 2021, with the opportunity to accept the prosecution's request to find Ratko Mladic guilty of genocide, in addition to Srebrenica, in five other municipalities - Prijedor , Sanski Most, Foča, Kotor-Varoš and Vlasenica.
The Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law of the University of Sarajevo has so far published 150 books, studies and monographs in Bosnian, English, French, Norwegian, Turkish and Persian, as well as 1,000 published scientific papers and thousands of newspaper articles. , columns, interviews, etc., proved that during the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the period 1992-1995, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) committed genocide in all occupied places and all cities under siege. Thus, the genocide committed against Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina was established as a scientific, legal and historical fact.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague, in its judgment of 26 February 2007 in Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), ruled (paragraph 276) that acts of genocide (actus reus) were committed against Bosniaks throughout the territory. Bosnia and Herzegovina throughout the international armed conflict (aggression). International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in cases against Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic (first instance verdict), Ljubisa Beara, Zdravko Tolimir, Milos Stupar, Milorad Trbic, Milenko Trifunovic, Brane Dzinic, Aleksandar Radovanovic, Slobodan Jakovljevic, Branislav Medan, Velibor Maksimovic, Dragisa Zivanovic, Milovan Matic, Momir Pelemis, Slavko Peric and Aleksandar Cvetkovic proved and convicted genocide.
Final verdicts before German national courts were handed down for the crime of genocide against Bosniaks in Doboj, Kalesija and Kotor-Varos. Before the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court in Munich, the crimes in the area of Foča were characterized by genocide.
The genocide against Bosniaks was established as a scientific, legal and historical fact.
Dealing with the past
Needless to say, it is important to bring war criminals to justice and convict them. Especially those conceited, arrogant, brazenly arrogant, sickly ambitious, narcissistic and headstrong criminals and insatiable bloodthirsty people like Ratko Mladic, whom the Greater Serbia mythomaniacs wanted to launch as a new Serbian military leader who would surpass the Serbian dukes from the First World War.
The sentencing of war criminal Ratko Mladic on June 8, 2021, before the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts in The Hague, is a moment of truth and a concrete example of dealing with the past. Bringing war criminals to justice is important for those who have been on the side of good, for those who are no longer alive, but also for those living who have experienced and survived harassment, terrorism, expulsion, rape, wounding, killing and humiliation of all kinds. A just judgment is, for the former, metaphysical justice, and for the latter moral satisfaction and lasting memory.
However, bringing to justice war criminals who receive deserved punishments, the truth, as old and almost senile people, is important especially because of those who systematically and deliberately persist in the ideological camouflage of reality and the gross dismantling of historical truth. Contrary to everything that the whole world, thanks to the Internet, television and newspapers, saw with their own eyes, Slobodan Milosevic claims in The Hague: "Everything about Bosnia and Herzegovina is a pure lie." In the same court, Radovan Karadzic claims: "Sarajevo was not under siege, Sarajevo was not even touched." Milosevic and Karadzic were the supreme commanders of the heartless criminal and insatiable bloodthirsty Ratko Mladic.
The final and partially fair verdict against Ratko Mladic is most important because of the large number of followers of his theory and practice, as well as the thousands of young people for whom war criminals, murderers, rapists, planners, organizers and perpetrators of crimes of the highest rank, such as genocide, are role models.
(The author is the director of the Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law at the University of Sarajevo)