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Tribiunal Prosecutes Karadzic, Mladic in Mock Trial
Week of testimony hopes to shame world powers
Over the past week, the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal heard damaging evidence against two Bosnian Serbs who are accused of some of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II.
If a three-judge panel decides there is enough evidence to suggest the guilt of Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic, it will issue international arrest warrants for them on Thursday — an outcome that is considered likely. But with Western powers reluctant to use force to wrest them from Bosnian Serb-held territory, it’s unclear if the warrants would have any impact. For seven days, judges and journalists were shown the conflict from different vantage points, from the Bosnian Serb headquarters in Pale through the siege of Sarajevo to the killing fields of Srebrenica.
Karadzic and Mladic kept showing up in the chronicle of videotape, investigators’ findings and eyewitness accounts, especially after the Bosnian Serbs overran the U.N. safe area of Srebrenica one year ago. The so-called Rule 61 hearing was also conducted to alert the international community to the crimes in hopes of convincing nations to go after the two indicted war crimes suspects. A Rule 61 hearing is not a trial in absentia. It’s a hearing for prosecutors to show the judges that there are "reasonable grounds" for believing the accused are guilty.
The defendant’s dock was empty during the testimony, since Karadzic and Mladic have refused to surrender. And the NATO-led Implementation Force in Bosnia has said its mission is not to pursue war criminals. The tribunal apparently thinks that may change.
"It’s the first time we’ve seen such a broad and full picture," tribunal spokesman Christian Chartier said Tuesday. "People on the street now have more understanding of what the tribunal thinks. "No longer can anyone have any doubts of their involvement," Chartier said. "These charges are not hollow, they’ve been substantiated." Three lawyers sent by Karadzic attempted to derail the proceedings with legal motions that the court rejected.
The hearing was the first comprehensive legal view of what prosecutors called genocide -- the so-called ethnic cleansing committed by Bosnian Serbs during the 44-month conflict. A U.S.-brokered peace accord in November halted the fighting.
Both leaders have been indicted for their role in atrocities allegedly carried out by their forces, including torture, rape and mass murders of Muslims. To link Karadzic, prosecutors displayed a paper trail showing he was in firm control of the Bosnian Serb government and supreme commander of Serb forces.
One investigator detailed seven different sites where Mladic appeared in and around Srebrenica after it fell last July. An estimated 7,000 Muslims refugees from Srebrenica are still missing, and tribunal prosecutors say they were massacred by Mladic’s troops. This week, investigators began digging up corpses from a mass grave near Srebrenica that they believe are victims of Serb murder squads.
Prosecutors told the tribunal that various prison camps where the torture and killing of Muslims took place were operated by entities under the direct control of Karadzic and Mladic. "The evidence presented was overwhelming. ... The accused cannot claim that they were not in charge, and the world can no longer say we didn’t know," Chartier said.
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THE HAGUE, July 10, Netherlands (AP) -- At a mock trial, war crimes prosecutors presented survivors’ testimony of genocide, hoping such grisly evidence would shame world leaders into arresting Bosnia’s most wanted suspects.
Berserkistan, July 4 · Tribunal Hears how UN and NATO Abandoned Srebrenica
Berserkistan, July 3 · Mladic Promised Srebrenica Muslims Safety before Killing Spree Began
Berserkistan, July 2 · Tribunal Hears of Rape as Ethnic Cleansing Weapon
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