prijava
THE HAGUE/SARAJEVO, March 23 (FENA) - The Prosecution at the UN tribunal in The Hague on Thursday announced its appeal against the first-instance verdict in Ratko Mladić case, calling on the UN court to further convict him of genocide against Bosniaks and Croats in five more municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In November last year, The Hague Tribunal sentenced former Bosnian Serb Army commander Mladić to life imprisonment for committing genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, persecuting Croats and Bosniaks throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terrorizing the population of Sarajevo and taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
But the Tribunal acquitted Mladić of committing genocide in 1992 in five more municipalities - Foča, Kotor-Varoš, Prijedor, Sanski Most and Vlasenica.
Under the first-instance verdict, the Tribunal judges determined by a majority vote that members of Serb forces had “genocidal intent” to destroy Bosniaks and Croats as ethnic groups in those municipalities.
But although “a large number of Muslims and Croats were killed or suffered severe bodily injuries”, the court decided that the victims did not account for “a substantial part” of those ethnic groups in the municipalities, so the condition for classifying the crime as genocide was not fulfilled.
The verdict also said that Mladić and other participants in a joint criminal enterprise did not share the genocidal intent to destroy Bosniaks and Croats in those five municipalities.
In its appeal, the Prosecution calls on the court’s appeals chamber to find that “a substantial part” of the Bosniak and Croat population was the target of Mladić’s forces in the five municipalities.
It also calls on the court to reverse its conclusion that Mladić did not have genocidal intent in the five municipalities.
Mladić’s Defense also filed an announcement of an appeal against the first-instance verdict, asking the court to quash the verdict because of a series of legal and factual mistakes.
The Defense wants the court to acquit Mladić of all the charges or order a retrial.
According to the defense lawyers, the Tribunal wrongly ruled that there was a joint criminal enterprise in which Mladić participated. The verdict said the goal of the criminal enterprise was to permanently and forcibly remove the non-Serb population from large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina which Bosnian Serb leaders claimed as Serb territories.
The Defense also said the verdict’s ruling that there was a joint criminal enterprise in Sarajevo and Srebrenica was wrong.
It further insists in its appeal that Mladić was not a protagonist in another joint criminal enterprise aimed at taking UN peacekeepers hostage.
Mladić’s defense lawyers claim he did not get a fair trial because his rights were “seriously breached”, BIRN BiH reported.
(FENA)
Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/vhosts/fena.ba/httpdocs/post-new.php on line 215
