Posted on 07/31/2003 9:58:46 AM PDT by NYC Republican
(AP) The U.N. war crimes tribunal sentenced a prominent Bosnian Serb politician to life imprisonment Thursday for exterminating and persecuting Bosnian Muslims, but acquitted him of genocide.
It was the first time in the court's 10-year history that a life sentence was passed.
Milomir Stakic, a 41-year-old doctor, was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for establishing a network of brutal prison camps where hundreds of Muslims were killed and thousands tortured, raped or treated with extreme brutality in 1992.
“Dr. Milomar Stakic is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment,” said Judge Wolfgang Schomburg, reading the verdict as Stakic stood, looking stunned. The court said he would be eligible for parole in 20 years.
Although it has never been imposed before, Schomburg said the maximum penalty was “not restricted to the most serious crime” of genocide.
It was the third time the court has handed down an acquittal of genocide charges, the most serious crime to come before the court and the hardest to prove. The court has convicted only one person, Bosnian general Radislav Krstic, of genocide.
The balding, bearded Stakic had faced two counts of genocide and six counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for the murder, rape and torture administered in the camps set up in the Prijedor region of northwestern Bosnia during the summer of 1992.
The outcome was being watched closely for its possible influence on the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who also faces two counts of genocide among the 66 charges against him.
Without referring to the Milosevic case, however, the judge said the genocide ruling applied only to Stakic and should not mean another trial cannot reach another conclusion when presented with other evidence.
To prove genocide, the prosecution must prove a prior intent to destroy an ethnic group wholly or in part.
The Milosevic trial has been adjourned until Aug. 25 because of concerns about his health.
The court said that as the top administrator of the Prijedor region, Stakic was responsible for the atrocities committed there.
He presided over establishment of two notorious detention centers where thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats were held captive until international exposure forced the Serbs to close them.
Stakic's indictment listed specific incidents of murder and brutality, such as the killing of 120 people taken in two buses from the Keraterm and Omarska camps in August 1992, the month the camps were closed.
Stakic has been at the tribunal's detention unit since he was handed over by Serb authorities in March 2001. In the seven months of hearings that ended last April, 101 witnesses testified.
Stakic claims he was a “marionette” in Bosnian Serb wartime politics and had no real power.
But the court ruled that he actively carried out his duties as president of the Prijedor administration, signing orders that perpetuated hatred of non-Serbs and assisting military campaigns of “ethnic cleansing” of tens of thousands of civilians.
By conservative estimate, more than 20,000 people were deported from the Prijedor region as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing, the judge said.
Both sides will have two weeks to file an appeal of the judgment by the three-member panel of judges. The U.N. tribunal cannot impose the death penalty.
In the only previous conviction of genocide by the Yugoslav court, Krstic was sentenced to 46 years in prison for his role in the July 1995 killings of at least 7,500 Bosnian Muslims in the enclave of Srebrenica, then a U.N. protected zone.
Until Thursday, Krstic's was the longest sentence imposed by the court.
The court's two most-wanted suspects, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and wartime military commander Ratko Mladic, were also indicted on genocide charges for the massacres.
Revisionist history. TOTAL lies. The Serb army DWARFED that of every other. The Bosnians used home-made rifles for the most part, as the Serbs controlled what was the national Yugoslav army.
Come on, we're not that naiive.
Do you have the numbers? You do know that the Yugoslav army pulled out the Spring of 1992, and international observers confirmed this, don't you?
The infamous footage of the super skinny man, Fikret Alic, was where the crew put itself behind a dilapidated fence surrounding an agricultural area, and shot through that, deceiving the public that the men were imprisoned inside. They weren't. You do know that the man was in a transit camp and on his way to Europe. (Europe opened its doors and allowed the Muslims to easily escape the war; the Serbs had to stay and suffer the Mujahideen). Those who shot the footage scanned the crowd for skinny men - there were many normal and well-fed men - and someone pushed Fikret Alic through the crowd remarking on his appearance. But he was probably like that before the war through disease or naturally. Here is an article and photograph of him last summer, at the tenth anniversary of that picture. He's not missing any ears, eyes, scalp, fingers, etc. There's no scars. And now he's married to a Bosnian woman and has a little boy.
http://www.stern.de/lifestyle/leute/index.html?id=265039&nv=cp_L1_as
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Who is a Bosnian Muslim who starved to death? He didn't. Serbs say no Bosnia Muslims starved to death in Serb prisoners. On the otherhand, there are Serbs who starved to death in Muslim camps such as the Silo at Tarcin.
The Truth vs. ITN - And Reuters
Photo: ITN archive
Do you want to explain this? Albanoid? What the heck are you talking about? Why don't you call me Bosnian? Or Croatian? Or heck Serb, I could be a Serb who loves my people but hates those that have helped destroy our good name and sacked our economy? You're wrong on all fronts, but, just out of curiosity, just cause I can't stand seeing people supporting the Milosevice regime and engaging in revisionist history, you think I happen to be from a certain region? That's too funny.
As a long time FR Balkans Front member, I haven't seen anybody on FreeRepublic supporting Milosevic or his regime.
I have seen posters put the lie to NATO claims for intervention in the Balkans. I have seen posters disparage Milosevic but still put his words in perspective like the supposedly inciteful speech in Kosovo. Heck, the Clinton state dept thought he was a great guy at the Dayton accords.
I'm not a fan of unrepentant communist hard liners but there are and where at the time, leaders of countries that were much worse than Milosevic.
The ICTY trial and the complete corruption of the prosecution and judges only goes to show that even commie thugs can gain support when faced with a court that is a decoy for justice.
You can't even give him away at that price, you fool.
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