Tribunal Stresses Even-Handed
Prosecution of Suspects
(THE HAGUE, March 22—Reuters) The U.N. criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia on Friday charged three Bosnian Muslims and a Croat with war crimes, its first indictment for crimes against Serb victims. The tribunal said that three of the four men, two of whom were arrested in Germany and Austria earlier this week, were responsible for running the Celebici camp at Konjic in central Bosnia in 1992.The charges against the four for crimes against Serbs marks an important step for the tribunal which has repeatedly rejected accusations of bias against Serbs. "These are the first individuals indicted for crimes allegedly committed against Bosnian Serb victims. This (indictment) is the first of its kind. It will not be the last," tribunal spokesman Christian Chartier told reporters. He said that three of the four accused were Bosnian Muslims and one was a Croat, but declined to give further details.
"This indictment illustrates (our) even-handed policy," he said. The tribunal has repeatedly stated that its war crimes investigations are carried out irrespective of political or ethnic background. "Nationality is not a crime," Chartier said.
The tribunal said that Bosnian Muslim and Croat forces attacked the predominantly-Muslim populated town of Konjic in May 1992, rounding up Serbs and holding them at the Celebici camp. Previous reports said that 250 detainees were held there. "Detainees were killed, tortured, sexually assaulted... and beaten," the tribunal said in its indictment.
THE INDICTED:
Landzo and Delic were accused of beating men to death with wooden planks, baseball bats, shovels and pieces of cable, and of torturing detainees, many in their 60s and 70s, with pliers, fuses, corrosives, electrical currents and hot metal pincers. On one occasion they were said to have nailed a Muslim political badge to a man's forehead, among a catalogue of other mutilations. Delic was also twice charged with multiple rape. Chartier said Delic and Landzo were still at large, but the Bosnian authorities had "given assurances that the accused will be arrested and surrendered to the tribunal."
- Zejnil Delalic, 47, who was arrested by German police in Munich last Monday, commanded a unit of the Bosnian Muslim forces from June to November, 1992. The tribunal accused him of overall responsibility for all the crimes committed by his subordinates, including the murder of at least 14 Serbs and various acts of torture and rape.
- Camp commander Zdravko Mucic, 41, arrested in Vienna last Monday and identified by the Bosnian Serb SRNA news agency on Friday as a Bosnian Croat, was also charged with the 14 murders.
- Hazim Delic, 31, deputy to Mucic, was accused of four murders, torture and rape.
- 23-year-old camp guard Esad Landzo, was charged with five murders.
The latest indictments bring the total number of those charged by the tribunal to 57—46 Serbs, including Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief General Ratko Mladic, eight Croats and three Muslims. The tribunal, set up by the U.N Security Council in May 1993, currently holds just two suspects at its 24-cell detention center in The Hague.
The tribunal earlier said that a third, Goran Lajic, a Bosnian Serb arrested in Nuremberg last Monday, was due to be transferred to tribunal custody in the next few weeks. Lajic was one of 13 Serbs charged last July with atrocities against Muslims at the Keraterm prison camp in Prijedor, northwest Bosnia. The tribunal said it expected to take custody of Delalic and Mucic within weeks.
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
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