Secular Café: Mladic trial looks at Srebrenica

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Mladic trial looks at Srebrenica May 17th 2012, 10:44 I expect most people know that the Serb General Rtako Mladic is now on trial at the Hague for war crimes and genocide. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18099008 Quote: Gen Mladic is accused of orchestrating the killings of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men in the town... ...Prosecuting counsel Peter McCloskey said that the crimes at Srebrenica had never been in dispute so the prosecution's focus would be on individual criminal responsibility. He said that the Bosnian Serb Army was not an "army out of control" and that Gen Mladic had been on the ground and in command. "We have radio intercepts of VRS (Bosnian Serb) soldiers and officers discussing murders. We have video of two of the actual executions themselves. So let me be perfectly clear, the crime will not be the main focus of this prosecution. This case will be primarily about one issue. The individual criminal responsibility of Ratko Mladic," he said... ...The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II. Serb fighters overran the enclave in eastern Bosnia - supposedly under the protection of Dutch UN peacekeepers. Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were separated off, shot dead and bulldozed into mass graves - later to be dug up and reburied in more remote spots. Gen Mladic is also charged in connection with the 44-month siege of Sarajevo during which more than 10,000 people died. On the first day of the trial on Wednesday, the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) argued that Gen Mladic had intended to "ethnically cleanse" Bosnia... ...Some former Bosnian Serb commanders have already been convicted by the international court in connection with the Srebrenica killings. In 2010 Vujadin Popovic and Ljubisa Beara were sentenced to life in prison. Five other defendants were jailed for between five and 35 years. The architect of the Balkan wars, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, died in detention in his cell in 2006, before receiving a verdict.

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