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Prosecution starts closing arguments in Mladic genocide trial

Xinhua, December 6, 2016 Adjust font size:

The closing arguments in the genocide trial of Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, commenced on Monday in The Hague with the prosecution having the opening words.

"Mladic's cleansing campaign tore apart non-Serb communities and left behind mass graves full of victims," prosecutor Alan Tieger told a three-judge panel at the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), "He used his control over subordinates to achieve ethnic cleansing."

Mladic stands accused of two counts of genocide, five crimes against humanity and four violations of the laws or customs of war committed during the Bosnian War in Bosnia and Herzegovina from May 1992 to late 1995. One of the genocide crimes is related to the Srebrenica massacre, when around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed in Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

After having been at large for almost 16 years, Mladic was arrested in Serbia on May 26, 2011. His trail started on May 16, 2012 and suffered from delays, partly due to the bad health of the accused.

The trial entered its final phase on Monday, with the now 74-year-old Mladic looking physically fragile. Some relatives of his victims watched from the public galley, hoping Mladic will be fit enough to hear his judgment.

The closing arguments of the prosecution will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday. This will be followed by the defense arguments starting on Dec. 9 and also scheduled for Dec. 12 and 13. The parties will each have one-and-a-half hour on Dec. 15, for their final comments.

The trial of Mladic is the last pending one at the ICTY, after the trial of former Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic was halted after the death of the accused in July this year. A trial judgment in the Madlic case is expected in November 2017.

In March this year, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in prison by the ICTY judges. The latter filed an appeal against this judgment on Monday. Enditem