Friday, May 18, 2012

Extracted from CNN Court suspends Ratko Mladic war crimes trial From Nic Robertson, CNN May 17, 2012 -- Updated 1221 GMT (2021 HKT)



General Ratko Mladic, center, commander of Serbian forces in Bosnia, arrives at Sarajevo airport on August 10, 1993 to negotiate the withdrawal of his troops from Mount Igman.General Ratko Mladic, center, commander of Serbian forces in Bosnia, arrives at Sarajevo airport on August 10, 1993 to negotiate the withdrawal of his troops from Mount Igman.
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Ratko Mladic: Villain to many, hero to others
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • The trial of the alleged "Butcher of Bosnia" is suspended on its second day
  • A dispute over evidence halted proceedings against the alleged war criminal
  • The ex-general faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity
  • Nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in Srebrenica
The Hague, Netherlands (CNN) -- The war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic was suspended until further notice Thursday over the prosecution's failure to disclose some evidence against Mladic, court spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said.
The abrupt suspension came only a day after the long-awaited trial began.
Prosecutors had been planning to focus Thursday on the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, for which they accuse Mladic of responsibility.
But the defense called for a halt to the trial after it found that the prosecution had not shown it all the evidence against Mladic. Under court rules, the defense has a right to study prosecution evidence before a trial begins.
It was not clear what the evidence was or how long the delay would last, but it could be a matter of weeks.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120517102917-bpr-robertson-mladic-trial-00002328-story-body.jpgSrebrenica the focus of Mladic trial
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120516094328-pkg-robertson-hague-mladic-hearing-00001627-story-body.jpg'Butcher of Bosnia' shows no remorse
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120516014259-lklv-robertson-mladic-00002514-story-body.jpgMladic war crimes trial begins
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120515021818-ratko-mladic-story-body.jpg2011: Ratko Mladic captured
Lawyers will meet the judge Thursday afternoon to discuss how to proceed. The prosecution says that it did not show the defense all of its evidence, an apparent error that became evident when prosecutors began to lay out their case Wednesday.
Mladic is accused of orchestrating a horrific campaign of ethnic cleansing during the bloody civil war that ripped apart Yugoslavia.
The former general showed no remorse as his war crimes trial opened Wednesday, at one point even appearing to threaten victims in the court.
He drew his hand across his neck as if cutting a throat while staring at victims of the war that introduced the phrase "ethnic cleansing."
At other times, the man accused of being "the Butcher of Bosnia" stared at them, fire in his eyes, and he once growled at the survivors.
The 70-year-old former Bosnian Serb general has been indicted on 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 1992-95 war.
His trial is taking place at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands, a special court established to try those responsible for atrocities during the war.
On Wednesday, prosecutor Dermot Groome laid out details of the case against Mladic, saying that ethnic cleansing was not a byproduct of the war, but a specific aim of the Bosnian Serb leadership.
He aimed to show that Mladic was directly responsible for atrocities carried out by his forces, who were fighting for control of land in ethnically mixed Bosnia.
Sexual violence was a weapon of war, Groome said, describing a woman who said she had been raped more than 50 times, and women who were forced by Bosnian Serb forces to perform sex acts on members of their own families.
Prosecutors will use survivor testimonies and video clips to make their case at a trial that is likely to last for months or years.
Among those in the courtroom were the families of Srebrenica victims.
"Victims have waited nearly two decades to see Ratko Mladic in the dock," Param-Preet Singh, senior counsel in the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, said ahead of the trial. "His trial should lay to rest the notion that those accused of atrocity crimes can run out the clock on justice."
Mladic's trial began after a landmark war crimes ruling last month, when another international tribunal found former Liberian President Charles Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone's notoriously brutal civil war.
Taylor got a final chance to address his court Wednesday as Mladic's trial opened, and he said he was "saddened" by a verdict that he portrayed as unfair.
"Both trials are evidence of the growing international trend to hold perpetrators of atrocities to account, no matter how senior their position," Human Rights Watch said.
Mladic eluded authorities for nearly 16 years until his capture in May 2011, when police burst into the garden of a small house in northern Serbia.
Europe's highest-ranking war crimes suspect was discovered standing against a wall in a utility room normally used for storing farm equipment, according to a government minister.
Though he was carrying two handguns, he surrendered without a fight. He was extradited for trial in the Netherlands.
But from day one in custody, he has exhibited defiance and appears not to have relinquished his visceral antagonism toward his enemies. Before the trial that started Wednesday, he also drew a finger across his throat in court, a gesture aimed at some of the Srebrenica widows. At other times, he disrupted proceedings by putting on a hat in the courtroom and refusing to enter a plea.
He has sought delays in his trial and said he is in failing health.
In July 1995, Mladic was in command of the Bosnian Serb army and led his soldiers into the town of Srebrenica. In the days that followed, the soldiers systematically slaughtered nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
Bosnia peace negotiator Richard Holbrooke once described Mladic as "one of those lethal combinations that history thrusts up occasionally -- a charismatic murderer."
In the three decades leading up to the violent splintering of Yugoslavia, Mladic rose rapidly through the ranks of the Yugoslav army. In 1991, he served as a front-line commander spearheading Serb forces in a yearlong war with Croatia.
By the time he took to Bosnia's battlefields, he had become a hero to many Serbs, seen as a defender of their dwindling fortunes.
In May 1992, Bosnia's Serbian political leaders picked him to lead the assault on their Muslim enemies who clamored for independence.
Mladic wasted no time galvanizing his heavily armed forces in a siege of Sarajevo, cutting the city off from the outside world. Serb forces pounded the city every day from higher ground positions, trapping Sarajevo's ill-prepared residents in the valley below. More than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, perished.
Some observers conjured images of Sarajevo in describing Syrian attacks on the besieged city of Homs earlier this year.
As the war ended in the fall of 1995, Mladic went on the run.
Shortly after Mladic was sent to The Hague last year, authorities nabbed former Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic. He was the last Yugoslav war crimes suspect at large.
Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested in 2008. And Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was arrested in 2001 but died before his trial could be completed.
CNN's Moni Basu contributed to this report.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is this article relevant to your poxy party ? Explain. Get back to reading Mills and Boon.

Anonymous said...

I see no need to feature this story. We all know where Albert resides get ICC to issue a warrant to arrest him ! Keep trying.....

PISSEDOFF said...

Avant ICC i aret FAR zot a bezwen aret bann mari manman Totof Gill akoz sa ki ti bour li e fer li ansent sa gros kouyon committed a cime against humanity!

Anonymous said...

1.50PM
The blogger said"I see no need to feature this story".I think it is not the story that we should concentrate on but the Court dicdsion and proceedings .What can we learn as a Nation from it?

It is a good example for PP communist and the people of Seychelles to have an insight of how independent justice works.Its balance,its fairness and independency.

Thec case teaches us that:justice is a concept under obth natural and higher law that says you shall recieve reward or treatment base on your action and worthiness.

ICC suspension of the case shows that a good or professioanl justice system recognizes it mistakes when done and take steps to correct them in order that it is not baised thus provides impartiality to both victims and culprits.It provides justice wwtihout nay particaility and it shows transparency to make the judgement unbiased.
It shows that a legal system is consist of judges,lawyers, and clients and its the rssponsibilities of everyone to act ethically and morally so that the legal system can work well, if not it could produce mistakes,mis-understanding etc...

In a word,it teaches us the lesson of how an indenpendent,fair,unbiased,unarbitary justice system works- a lesson for PP that only indenpendent justice system can provides fairness and equitable justice.

We will keep trying for it worth doing it for justice regardless of how long it may take always finds its way through.Mubarak is facing justice he who was convinced it would never happened.

Jeanne D'Arc

Anonymous said...

If ICC could arrested and brought to justice more powerful criminals like Charles Taylor,and the rest why not those half-brain crooks like the butcher and FAR?

Jeanne D'Arc

Anonymous said...

Also Bush, Blair & Chenney

Anonymous said...

Justice for all - racism cannot be tolerated!

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-report-criticizes-israel-s-treatment-of-african-migrants-1.432518

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/24/world/meast/israel-immigration-protest/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Anonymous said...

Justice for all,and the Isreal poeple are doing justice for all how?Since they all illegal the only way justice can be delivered is to send them back to their country.Why?From where they come there is no war,no famine,their lives no endagers etc... they are simply economic immigrants thus send them back to help first remove dictator if there is one for it is their country they must get the job done and secondly herlp develop their land again for no one will do in their palce.Maybe they should also learn to respect a soveiregn country law etc... if not PISYY what makes you beleive they can rape others laws ,you little donkey brain?

Jeanne D?Arc

Anonymous said...

Fairy tail of the weekend.

ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

VOXX

Anonymous said...

The real fair tale of the weekend was listening to JENPA who is member of PP thugocracy giving lesson on democracy,trade to other African dictators.Just a little bit like Mancham who support and advertise a dictatorship at home but presenting himself as a real democrate abroad..

Jeanne D'Arc

Anonymous said...

Good for you at least you Did listen weLL and it went thru your KOKSIS.

i'm very proud of yoU.

Anonymous said...

It got to my head .My pig was laughing that catched my attention.Then i discovered that it was JENPA^s absurdity that he was laughing at.JENPA went TRADE.But what does PP has to trade,when it has left our EEZ at the mercy of foreigners to exploit and rob our natural resources in return for peanut?.Keep this figure in mind,last NET PROFITS made by foreigner tuna seiners EURO 3 BILLION.You could figure out i hope how much money our country could have made should PP thugs had provided our people with their own seiners and exploit their natural resuorces themselves.

Jeanne D'Arc

Anonymous said...

I need PISSEDOFF to help me on this one.Last week my brother on his trip to UK,transiting Switzerland,came across a guy holding a Seychellois passport in the name of (SRIVASTAVA ADNAR)does not sound A Seychellois name already.The guy could not speak a word croele nor a word French just bad English.MY question is i personally never heard of Seychellois with such a name nor my grandma ifnored such names,could it be aontoher ofreigner PP illegally sold out our passport to?

Enlightned me PISSY on the issue PISSY for the name sound similar to RAMADOSS KIVASANVASPA the Indian made fake Seychellois?

Jeanne D'Arc

Anonymous said...

Your brother was in the same boat as that Indian. The Indian allegedly had a fake Seychelles passport and your brother was trying to sneak in the UK as an illegal immigrant.
Tell your brother; "Bef dan disab, sakenn vey son lizye!

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