Posted on 02/27/2005 11:42:42 PM PST by Jane_N
SARAJEVO (AFP) - The man who headed the Bosnian Muslim army during most of the war in the 1990's has flown out of Sarajevo to surrender to the UN tribunal at The Hague (news - web sites), which has indicted him for war crimes.
General Rasim Delic, who got a high-profile send-off from the Bosnian capital, faces charges relating to the murders of several dozen Bosnian Croat and Serb soldiers committed by foreign Islamic fighters under his command.
Bosnian Prime Minister Adnan Terzic as well as several hundred former soldiers came to Sarajevo airport to see the former general off on his way to the Netherlands.
"Don't worry. Justice will win," Delic, 56, told the crowd in calm voice before boarding the plane.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) made public the indictment against Delic last week.
He is accused of violating the laws or customs of war by "murder and cruel treatement" of ethnic Croat and Serb prisoners. The indictment had previously been kept secret.
Delic, who served as army chief from 1993 until the end of the war, "knew or had reason to know that all crimes... were about to be committed or had been committed by his subordinates and he failed to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent such acts or punish perpetrators thereof," the indictments said.
The charges include crimes committed by the El Mujahed unit, made up of fighters from Islamic countries fighting alongside the Muslim-led Bosnian army.
Between 1993 and 1995 several dozen Bosnian Croat and Serb prisoners of war were killed near the central Bosnian towns of Travnik and Vozuca by the Arab fighters, who referred to themselves as as Mujahedins or holy warriors, according to the indictment.
Some of the prisoners were decapitated.
The former army chief previously said he did not feel responsible for the crimes since there had been three command levels between him and the El Mujahed unit.
Delic is the second Bosnian Muslim wartime army chief to be indicted for war crimes by the ICTY, which is also trying senior Croat and Serb figures linked to the conflicts of the 1990's, including former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites).
Delic's predecessor as Bosnian Muslim army chief, Sefer Halilovic, has surrendered to the UN tribunal to answer to charges relating to the massacre of 62 Croat civilians in the villages of Grabovica and Uzdol in 1993. Halilovic's trial started earlier this month.
The El Mujahed unit also features in an indictment against two other high-ranking Bosnian Muslim commanders, wartime chief-of-staff general Enver Hadzihasanovic and brigade commander Amir Kubura.
According to their joint indictment, the unit abused and murdered Serb and Croat detainees in central Bosnia.
The ICTY has indicted dozens of people over alleged war crimes committed during the conflict, that claimed over 200,000 lives.
Most of the indictees have been Serbs, including wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic who face charges including genocide but remain on the run somewhere, suspected to be in the Balkans.
Bosnian Serb authorities are accused of obstructing the tribunal's work and have not arrested a single suspect since the end of the conflict.
Seeing as you're interested in the jihadis, you might consider it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.