R. Mladic went to trial today
16/05/2012 15:30
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Today, on May 16, Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic went on trial with an accusation for genocide. He is accused of leading the slaughter of 8,000 unarmed Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica in 1995, Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two. Reuters writes about this. According to the source Prosecutor Dermot Groome said Mladic and other Bosnian Serbs had divided the territory of the former Yugoslavia along ethnic lines and implemented a common plan to exterminate non-Serbs.
“The prosecution will present evidence that will show beyond a reasonable doubt the hand of Mr. Mladic in each of these crimes,” he said.Mladic is the last of the main protagonists in the Balkan wars of the 1990s to go on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
He is accused of orchestrating not only the week-long massacre in Srebrenica, at the time a U.N. “safe haven”, but also the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, in which more than 10,000 people were killed by snipers, machineguns and heavy artillery.
The list of charges stemming from his actions as the Serb military commander in the Bosnian war of 1992-95 ranges from genocide to murder, acts of terror and other crimes against humanity.But Mladic, who was arrested last May after 16 years on the run, has dismissed the charges as “monstrous” and says he is too ill to stand trial. The court entered a “not guilty” plea on his behalf.
The case has inevitably stirred up violent emotions in the Balkans. Survivors watching earlier proceedings from the court gallery have shouted “Murderer!” and “Killer!” at a man nicknamed the “Butcher of Bosnia”.
Mladic has been angry and defiant during pre-trial hearings, heckling the judge, shouting and interrupting the proceedings.
“The whole world knows who I am,” he told a hearing last year. “I am General Ratko Mladic. I defended my people, my country … now I am defending myself.”
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