Bosnet NEWS: Tribunal Update March 10 - 15
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B o s N e t - Mart 16, 1997
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Last Week in The Hague (March 10-15, 1997)
* Celebici trial begins with opening statements
* Hearing of Defence motions in Blaskic
* Court announces tentative date for judgement in Tadic case
__________________________________
THE BEGINNING OF THE CELEBICI TRIAL
The trial of the four accused of alleged crimes in the Celebici camp,
that opened in The Hague on 10 March, has been announced as a triple
"premiere":
- the first collective trial for war crimes before an international
court after Nuremberg and Tokyo trials in 1946;
- the first trial before the Tribunal according to the indictment that
is based on the concept of "command responsibility";
- the first international trial (after Tokyo) where rape and sexual
assault are qualified as war crimes.
According to Tribunal's Spokesman, Christian Chartier, these
characteristics make the case "a landmark trial in the international
law." The Defence, however, has made an objection due to
"sensationalist comparisons", claiming that it is "inappropriate" to
make any connections between the four accused and the well-known
actors in the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. The Presiding Judge,
Adolphus Karibi-Whyte from Nigeria, overruled the objection and
appealed to the Defence not to attribute too much attention to such
statements.
Prosecutor Eric Ostberg further contributed to the polemical tone that
marked the beginning of the trial. He noted in the introduction of his
opening statement that in the media and elsewhere, the case has been
referred to as "the Muslim case". For him, this is "an unfortunate
description"...not only because one of the accused is not a Muslim,
but primarily because "the religion or ethnicity of the perpetrators
is of no consequence" for the case. "It is their serious violations of
international humanitarian law we are going to try ... no
responsibility of a state or army or any such body - just their own
individual responsibility".
Subsequently, the Prosecutor briefly presented the counts of the
indictment that charge Zejnil Delalic (49), Zdravko Mucic (41), Hazim
Delic (32) and Esad Landzo (24) with crimes perpetrated in the
Celebici camp near Konjic (Herzegovina) in the period between May and
October 1992. According to the Prosecutor, the civilians from the
nearby Serb villages, which Muslim and Croat forces had captured in
May 1992, were unlawfully imprisoned in this camp along with the
prisoners of war. Should the Defence, Ostberg stressed, "maintain that
the Bosnian and Croat forces had the right to attack the villages
around Konjic...the Prosecution would not contest it", just as the
Prosecution will not contest "if the Defence should maintain that the
Bosnian forces had the right to round up and bring to the detention
centre defeated and disarmed Serb soldiers from these villages".
The case of the Prosecution, Ostberg specified, rests only on two
facts:
- that members of the civilian population of the villages were
imprisoned unlawfully,
- that many of these persons once detained -- along with those who
were prisoners of war -- were killed, tortured and abused in the
detention centre, camp, prison..."or what the proper term would be for
this horrific place in Celebici".
Introducing the accused to the Trial Chamber, the Prosecutor started
with Zejnil Delalic, who had the highest degree of authority and is
charged with command responsibility and direct participation in the
unlawful confinement of civilians. The prosecution will, Ostberg said,
"show that Zejnil Delalic in his capacity of co-ordinator and as
Commander of the 1st Tactical Group had the responsibility for the
operation of the Celebici camp and was in position of superior
authority to all persons acting there." Concerning the second accused,
Zdravko Mucic, the Prosecutor claims that he became the commander of
the Celebici camp soon after its inception in May 1992, and remained
in this position until 18 November 1992. During this period, according
to the Prosecutor, "he was in de facto control of the camp [...]
responsible for its operation having the position of superior
authority to all guards [...]". He is charged with command
responsibility for the crimes of his subordinates, and with being
directly responsible for creating inhuman conditions in the camp.
The third accused, Hazim Delic, as a deputy commander, was, according
to the Prosecution, also responsible for the running of the camp and
was in position of superior authority to all guards and other persons
allowed to enter the camp. Additionally, Delic is charged as a direct
perpetrator with four murders, five instances of torture (two of which
include rape), four instances of cruel treatment causing great
suffering, and with unlawful confinement of civilians and plunder of
their property.
Finally, a camp guard, Esad Landzo, is charged as a direct perpetrator
with five murders, four instances of torture and two instances of
cruel treatment causing great suffering.
In the upcoming months the Prosecution will try to prove all these
charges with the aid of 76 witnesses, as well as with a plenty of
material evidence (exhibits) like models, maps, photographs,
video-tapes and documents.
Belgrade lawyer Branislav Tapuskovic was the only Defence counsel who
decided to present his opening statement at the beginning of the
trial, while the others opted to wait until the Prosecution has
completed the presentation of its case. Tapuskovic did not fail to
mention the problems he had because he -- as a Serb from Serbia --
accepted to defend Bosnian Croat Zdravko Mucic, who is accused of
crimes against Bosnian Serbs. He revealed that he was told by his
colleague from Sarajevo, who is defending one of the accused Muslims
in the same trial, that in Bosnia it is regarded as "a provocation
that Mucic is being defended by a lawyer from Belgrade". At the same
time, his Belgrade colleagues warned him that he "will ruin his
career" and advised him to wait...that he will eventually "get his own
Serb" to defend in The Hague. He was also attacked by the official
press in Belgrade with headlines such as "Tapuskovic defends the beast
from Celebici".
For Tapuskovic, however, Mucic is not a " beast", but rather a kind of
"Herzegovinian Schindler", who under the circumstances of "one of the
most senseless war in the history of civilisation", did as much as he
could to help the captured Bosnian Serbs in the camp. In his opening
statement, which Tapuskovic based exclusively on the evidence
forwarded by the Prosecution, he quoted from statements made by former
captives who will appear before the Court as prosecution witnesses.
Tapuskovic claimed that not only does none of them accuse Mucic of a
single incorrect act, let alone crime, but that many express their
gratitude to him for helping them to survive their captivity and gain
release from the camp. Besides, the Defence claims that Mucic was
appointed Commander of the camp on 27 July 1992, that is, only after a
majority of crimes, for which the indictment attributes command
responsibility to him, had already been perpetrated.
Unlike in the trial of Dusko Tadic, where the first several weeks were
taken up by testimonies of expert witnesses, on the third day of the
Celebici trial the Prosecutor brought the first victim and eye-witness
of suffering to the witness box. It was yet another "Hague premiere":
the first testimony of a Serb -- a victim of war crimes in former
Yugoslavia. The testimony of Mirko Babic, a 64-year-old forester from
the village of Bjelovcina near Konjic and a surviving captive of the
Celebici camp, was, in many of its elements, similar to testimonies of
the captives of Omarska and other camps in the Tadic trial.
His story sounded familiar: a civilian whose only guilt was "a wrong
nationality", in this instance the Serb. He said he was captured,
sadistically beaten, humiliated and imprisoned together with hundreds
more civilians of the same nationality. There was no food, or basic
sanitary conditions, but there was an abundance of night call-ups,
taking out of the hangar where they were held captive, tortures and
murders. Babic listed the names of five captives who were killed
before his eyes, or taken out of the hangar, beaten up and went
missing forever.
Like many of his predecessors who testified in earlier trials before
the Tribunal, this witness also said he knew some of those who
tortured him. He worked together with the accused Delic in the same
company and was friends with his father. This, however, did not help
him: one day Delic led him out of the hangar and together with two
other guards beat him until he became unconscious. Among those who
beat him was the accused Esad Landzo as well. Babic did not know him
personally, but, as he said, he was a "great friend" of his uncle.
However, it was Landzo who poured petrol on him one day and set his
leg on fire. Babic pulled up his trousers before the court and showed
the scars of burning to the judges and to the defence.
Babic said he met the camp commander Mucic, only once, on 1 September
1992, when Mucic released him from Celebici, together with some other
captives, and sent him to Konjic. When, some forty days later, Babic
was finally freed and reached the Serb territory, he weighed only 39
kilograms.
"That's my life. Five years have gone by and one cannot remember
everything. The only thing I cannot forget is wounds", Babic said at
the end of the first part of his testimony. On Monday, March 17, he
will be cross-examined by the defence.
HEARING IN BLASKIC CASE
The problem of "limited capacities" of the Tribunal -- the existence
of one courtroom only -- was acute last week, when the Trial Chamber
II stopped the Celebici trial after just two and a half days, so that
Chamber I could deal with a series of Defence Motions in the case of
General Blaskic.
In the first of five submitted motions, the General's lawyers, Ante
Nobilo from Zagreb and Russell Hayman from Los Angeles, have asked the
Trial Chamber to issue a Subpoena Duces Tecum compelling the
production "by the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina of certain
documents believed to be material, relevant and exculpatory to the
accused, and therefore crucial for the Defence's adequate preparation
for trial." In the Defence's opinion, on the basis of Rule 54, the
Tribunal has the right to issue such requests -- under threat of
punishment -- to states and their officials. Thus the Defence proposed
that the order is issued to Alija Izetbegovic personally, as the
President of the Presidency of B-H and as a person who has "the
factual power over the army of B-H, in whose possession are the
requested documents". Since the Prosecution had already requested the
material evidence from the governments of Croatia and the Federation
of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the same manner, the Defence believes that in
this respect it ought to be awarded equal treatment by the Court.
Prosecutor Mark Harmond supported this request, emphasising that the
Defence has to have the same access as the Prosecution, and that the
only limitation in issuing such orders may be a conclusion by the
Trial Chamber that the requested documents are not relevant for the
case under consideration.
Since Judge McDonald has already scheduled for 16 April the hearing at
which the power of the Tribunal to issue subpoenas to sovereign states
and their officials will be discussed and subsequently decided,
Presiding Judge Claude Jorda expressed a dilemma whether to rule on
the request made by the Defence before the second Chamber "solves
theoretical questions". In any case, he announced the decision in two
or three weeks.
In the same period Trial Chamber I should decide on four parliamentary
motions filed by the Defence:
- Motion to strike portions of amended indictment alleging "failure to
punish" liability, which according the Defence "lack any precedent in
established international customary law", "violates the principle of
nullum crimen sine lege and falls outside the subject-matter
jurisdiction of this Tribunal",
- Motion in limine regarding mens rea (wrong intention or
premeditation) required for charges alleging command responsibility,
i.e. how to define "the know or reason to know mental state" that
makes the commander liable for the act of his subordinates,
- Motion to dismiss the indictment based upon defects in
the form of the indictment (vagueness/lack of adequate notice of
charges),
- Motion to dismiss some counts in the indictment based on
failure to adequately plead existence of international armed conflict,
which is prerequisite for application of Article 2 of the Geneva
Convention.
The Prosecution has opposed all those motions, claiming that the
majority of the matters the Defence has raised should be dealt with
during the trial.
JUDGEMENT DATE IN TADIC CASE
Tribunal's spokesman Christian Chartier has announced that the
judgement of Trial Chamber II in the Tadic case will be delivered by
the end of April. The date for the public hearing is tentatively set
on 22 April 1997, almost five months since the trial ended (28
November 1996).
Y Rapido
Well, as I said in 1993 and repeated in 1994, and repeated
ever since: Leave it to BosNet and nobody else is going to
screw as any more and more efficiently.
Congratulations idiots !
This is what is going on: Serb cannibals have murdered
more than 200 000 unarmed, innocent, sovereign citizens of
an internationally recognized subject, Republic of
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Great majority (perhaps more than 80%)
of them were members of the Bosnian nation (original: Bosniak)
and many of them were also Bosnian Croats, as well as people
of other non-Serb and even Serb ethnicities. Twice that many
were maimed, more than one million expelled (actually
two million altogether in the entire republic, of all citizens),
and more than 30 000 Bosnian women (most of them muslim) were
deliberately and SYSTEMATICALLY raped.
Now the One World Government is going to have the reality
(described illustratively below in points 1,2, and 3)
and than we are going to have distorted picture Idescribed
in point 4):
Points 1,2, adn 3:
1. Serb Nazi aggressor army killed 10 000 civillians [deliberately
and systematically];
2. Croatian Nazi aggressor killed 1000 civillians [deliberately and
systematically];
3. Bosnian Army (defenders of the republic) killed 100 civillians
[not deliberately, not systematically, but in the general
battle, and/or in isolated cases of non-controled anger, rage,
and such individual feelings of a few individuals];
Now, we are going to have the relation Serb : Croat : Bosnian
from the above numbers: Serb 100 : Croat 10 : Bosnian 1
But, in the Haag court, we are going to have:
4. The distorted picture:
Serb 1 : Croat 1 : Bosnian ("muslim") 1
Ergo: ALL PARTIES ARE GUILTY, ALL PARTIES COMMITTED WAR CRIMES
AND CRIMES OF GENOCIDE.
Now, that distorted picture shall be re-transmitted (parroted)
by the Internet network of the "Bosnian patriots" (ha, ha, ha,
ha, ha, ha, ....) called BosNet, and the last nail on the
Bosnian coffin is going to be nailed -- by the Bosnian "patriots"
themselves.
Bravo BosNet -- bravo stinking idiots ! Do it to us, just do
it to us! Put your subservient selves into service of
our butchers. Bend over ! Disgusting !
Sven Rustempasic
Co-founder of the Bosnian Bureau of war crimes investigations