37.5.4: Prosecution in the International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established in 1993 as a body within the UN tasked with prosecuting war crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. The tribunal is an ad hoc court located in The Hague, Netherlands. Both Serbs and Croats were indicted and convicted of systematic war crimes under the principle of joint criminal enterprise, while Bosniaks were indicted and convicted of individual ones. Most of the Bosnian-Serb wartime leadership, such as Biljana Plavšić, Momčilo Krajišnik, Radoslav Brđanin, and Duško Tadić, were indicted and judged guilty for war crimes and ethnic cleansing.

Major ICTY Cases

Radovan Karadžić was found guilty of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment on March 24, 2016.

The former president of Republika Srpska Radovan Karadžić was found guilty of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment on March 24, 2016. He was found guilty of genocide for the Srebrenica massacre, which aimed to kill “every able-bodied male” and systematically exterminate the Bosnian Muslim community. He was also convicted of persecution, extermination, deportation, forcible transfer (ethnic cleansing), and murder in connection with his campaign to drive Bosnian Muslims and Croats out of villages claimed by Serb forces. Ratko Mladić, the top military general with command responsibility in the Army of Republika Srpska, is currently on trial in the ICTY, charged with crimes in connection with the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre, following a long period in hiding as he attempted to evade arrest. The closing arguments for his case were conducted in December 2016 and a verdict is forthcoming. Prosecutors have argued for nothing less than a life sentence, citing the dissatisfaction of Bosnians when Karadžić was only given a 40-year sentence.

General Ratko Mladić during UN-mediated talks at Sarajevo Airport in 1993.

The Serbian President Slobodan Milošević was charged with war crimes in connection with the war in Bosnia, including grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, crimes against humanity, and genocide; however, he died in 2006 before his trial could finish. Milošević was arrested by Yugoslav federal authorities on March 31, 2001, on suspicion of corruption, abuse of power, and embezzlement following his resignation of the Yugoslav presidency and a disputed presidential election. The initial investigation into Milošević faltered for lack of evidence, prompting the Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić to extradite him to the ICTY to stand trial for charges of war crimes instead. At the outset of the trial, Milošević denounced the Tribunal as illegal because it had not been established with the consent of the UN General Assembly. As a result, he refused to appoint counsel for his defense and chose to defend himself in the five years that the trial progressed prior to his death.

Paramilitary leader Vojislav Šešelj was acquitted in a first-instance verdict on all counts of an alleged joint criminal enterprise to ethnically cleanse large areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina of non-Serbs by the ICTY on March 31, 2016. The acquittal was appealed by prosecutors from the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), a United Nations Security Council agency that functions as an overseer and successor to the ICTY. Subsequently, Šešelj led the Serbian Radical Party in the 2016 elections, and his party won 23 seats in the parliament.

The Hague revealed that Alija Izetbegović, President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War, was also under investigation for war crimes, although the prosecutor did not find sufficient evidence over the course of Izetbegović’s lifetime to issue an indictment. Other Bosniaks convicted of or on trial for war crimes include Rasim Delić, chief of staff of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on September 15, 2008, for his failure to prevent the Bosnian mujahideen members of the Bosnian army from committing crimes, including murder, rape, and torture, against captured civilians and enemy combatants. Enver Hadžihasanović, a general of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was sentenced to 3.5 years for authority over acts of murder and wanton destruction in Central Bosnia. Hazim Delić was the Bosniak Deputy Commander of the Čelebići prison camp, which detained Serb civilians. He was sentenced to 18 years by the ICTY Appeals Chamber on April 8, 2003, for murder and torture of the prisoners and the rape of two Serbian women.

Many Serbs have accused Sarajevo authorities of practicing selective justice in the active prosecution of Serbs for war crimes, while similar acts carried out by Bosniaks have been ignored or downplayed. Genocide at Srebrenica is the most serious war crime that any Serbs have been convicted of at the ICTY. Crimes against humanity (i.e., ethnic cleansing), a charge second in gravity only to genocide, is the most serious war crime that any Croat has been convicted of. The most serious war crime a Bosniak has been charged with at the Tribunal is breach of the Geneva Conventions.

Attributions

• Prosecution in the International Criminal Court
  • “Slobodan Milosevic.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milo%C5%A1evi%C4%87. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Joint criminal enterprise.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_criminal_enterprise. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Alija Izetbegović.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alija_Izetbegovi%C4%87. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Ratko Mladic: Indictment by the ICTY.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratko_Mladi%C4%87#Indictment_by_the_ICTY. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Bosnian War: Prosecutions and legal proceedings.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#Prosecutions_and_legal_proceedings. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_for_International_Criminal_Tribunals. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Vojislav Šešelj.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vojislav_%C5%A0e%C5%A1elj. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Radovan Karadzic: Conviction and sentence.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radovan_Karad%C5%BEi%C4%87#Conviction_and_sentence. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_the_former_Yugoslavia. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Evstafiev-ratko-mladic-1993-w.jpg.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evstafiev-ratko-mladic-1993-w.jpg. Wikimedia Commons GNU FDL 1.2.
  • “Evstafiev-Radovan_Karadzic_3MAR94.jpg.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evstafiev-Radovan_Karadzic_3MAR94.jpg. Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.5.