News Analysis: Milestone genocide judgment for Karadzic

More than 20 years after the war in former Yugoslavia, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war, will hear his judgment in The Hague on Thursday, a long-awaited historic judgment, experts explain to Xinhua.

Although Jan Pronk as Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation in the nineties had no active role during the Bosnian War, he did raise attention in Dutch media.

A few days after the fall of the "safe haven" Srebrenica, protected by the Dutch UN battalion Dutchbat, to the Bosnian Serbs, Pronk visited Bosnia. He feared a massacre of refugees from Srebrenica and it was Pronk who expressed his worries on national TV, not the Minister of Defense Joris Voorhoeve or the Minister of Foreign Affairs Hans van Mierlo.

"Genocide is taking place," he said.

"Genocide took place," Pronk now repeated, more than 20 years later. "To many that was already clear in 1995. Political leaders who do not distance themselves from atrocities carried out by their employees, soldiers and militias, and continue as leader, remain accountable. That also applies for those who do not always carry out the criminal orders, but operate independently, as is usually the case in civil wars. Political leaders are always one hundred percent politically responsible."

In the Bosnia case Pronk referred to Karadzic.

The former Dutch minister met the Bosnian Serb leader once and once witnessed a speech by him.

"My overall impression is that of a person who was surrounded by like-minded people, got alienated from reality and started to believe in his own truth, not the least in response to outside criticism," Pronk told Xinhua.

"He developed into a fanatical believer of a self-designed ideology, which was prepared to sacrifice people and set aside general human values for this purpose, including those he had previously espoused himself," said Pronk.

"From the beginning of the war in Bosnia, Karadzic was a hatred sower, a warmonger and leader of the ethnic cleansing," Joris Voorhoeve, Dutch Minister of Defense from 1994 until 1998, stated. "That was my opinion in 1993 and it is my opinion now. Therefore, he is heavily implicated in mass murder."

"He should have been caught much earlier," added Voorhoeve on Karadzic, who was only arrested in 2008.

"Since the summer of 1995 and in subsequent years I advocated to arrest him in a secret action. However the four other countries we needed for this (the United States, France, Britain, Germany) were unfortunately not willing to participate. Afterwards Karadzic was hiding and the intelligence services claimed that they did not know where he was. It is about time he gets his judgment now," said Voorhoeve.

Karadzic is accused of personal and command responsibility for two counts of genocide (in Srebrenica and in other municipalities), five counts of crimes against humanity (persecutions, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts) and four counts of violations of the laws or customs of war (murder, terror, unlawful attacks on civilians, taking of hostages).

All the crimes were committed against non-Serbs, in his roles as supreme commander of the Bosnian Serb armed forces and president of the Republika Srpska.

Karadzic was held responsible for the deaths of thousands, including the lost lives during the Siege of Sarajevo between April 1992 and November 1995 and the massacre in Srebrenica in July 1995, in which over 7,000 Muslim men were reportedly killed by Bosnian Serb forces.

The charges allege that Karadzic is individually criminally responsible for the counts set out above through his participation in a number of Joint Criminal Enterprises (JCE).

In 2001 the ICTY already judged that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide and in February 2007 the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also based in The Hague, concurred with the ICTY's earlier genocide finding. At the ICTY so far 14 individuals have been convicted for the Srebrenica genocide. However, no genocide conviction took place for the other municipalities. This first count in the Karadzic case remains controversial.

In June 2012 the court upheld the Srebrenica genocide count in relation to Karadzic, but dropped the other genocide charge that covered the mass killings, expulsions and persecution by Serb forces of Muslims and Croats from several other Bosnian towns early in the war.

In July 2013 the appeals chamber corrected this again and concluded that the evidence could indeed prove that genocidal acts occurred, that Karadzic possessed relevant genocidal intent and that the trial chamber had erred.

According to Cedric Ryngaert, professor of international law at Utrecht University, there is no doubt about the genocide in Srebrenica, but the question is if Karadzic is being held accountable for that.

"You have to prove his genocidal intent," Ryngaert stated. "For Ratko Mladic, the commander in the field, that is probably easier, but for a political leader that is more difficult, though his responsibility as leader of the JCE could be established."

Liesbeth Zegveld, a Dutch lawyer who represents, among others, victims of the Bosnian War, emphasized on the importance of a genocide conviction in the Karadzic case.

"Genocide touches all the victims, also the victims that don't have a personal case," Zegveld told Xinhua.

"For relatives that is important, that everyone is included as a group. For us it is also important to look closely at the management of the crimes. It is important to catch people who were sitting at a distance and claimed they did not know. It is easier to punish people who were in the field, but it is also important for the future of criminal law to address the leaders in major crimes," Zegveld said.

"It would be very sad if the leader without direct blood on his hand would go free," Zegveld added. "We have to focus on these leaders specifically. Karadzic now pretends he didn't know, but without him knowing these terrible crimes would not have happened."

"It is unlikely he will not be convicted for the genocide in Srebrenica," Zegveld continued.

"This genocide has been determined in previous judgments. The other genocide count will be more difficult, more fragmented. Nevertheless, one conviction for genocide will be enough for a life sentence, there is no other possibility for the severest crime. He is 70 years old now, so he will anyhow spend the rest of his life in prison, but another sentence would be a bad signal," Zegveld explained.

Peter Robinson, legal counsel of Karadzic, agrees that acquittal of the genocide count related to Srebrenica is unlikely.

"But he should be (acquitted)," he commented. "While the events of Srebrenica have been qualified as a genocide by the appeals chamber, there was really no evidence that President Karadzic personally knew that the prisoners from Srebrenica would be, were being, or had been executed. Whether the trial chamber will accept that is an open question as far as I am concerned."

"I believe that President Karadzic is likely to be acquitted on count one, the genocide in the municipalities, because the trial chamber acquitted him before of that charge at the end of the prosecution's case and there was no evidence in the defense case that would warrant a different conclusion," Robinson added.

"The fact is that the crimes in the municipalities in 1992, horrible as they were, were not committed with the intent to destroy the Bosnian Muslims as a group, a core requirement for the crime of genocide," Robinson said.

ICTY chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz is confident that the evidence presented by his office (OTP) is convincing enough and that life imprisonment is the only adequate sentence.

"We put forward our best case possible," he said. "As OTP we are of the opinion that there was also genocide in the municipalities. I am looking forward to the judgment in that regard. Even if a number of persons survived during the ethnic cleansing campaign it does not mean that there was no genocide intent in the minds of Karadzic and Mladic. We made our points and we are waiting for the verdict."

The trial of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic ended without a judgment when he died in his prison cell in The Hague on March 11, 2006, while Mladic is still on trial, with his defense case ongoing. On Thursday in The Hague Karadzic will be the first of the three major suspects of the Bosnian war to hear his verdict. A milestone judgment indeed. Endit