Serbia not guilty in genocide trial
America Under Zionist Feet and The court of law is the palace to commit crime!
Faruque Ahmed
Acts of horror ┘ a man prays among graves near Srebrenica on Sunday. About 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed near the town in July 1995.Photo: AP
Alexandra Hudson in The HagueFebruary 27, 2007
IN A historic case that put a nation on trial for genocide for the first time, Serbia has been found not guilty.
However, the UN's highest court in The Hague found yesterday that the massacre of about 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 was indeed genocide, and that Serbia failed to use its clear influence with Bosnian Serbs to prevent it.
The Serbs "should have made the best effort within their power to try and prevent the tragic events then taking shape" in the UN enclave, the scale of which "might have been surmised".
"The court finds that the acts of genocide at Srebrenica cannot be attributed to the respondent's [Serbia's] state organs," said the president of the International Court of Justice, Judge Rosalyn Higgins.
She said it could also not be established that Serbia had been complicit in the genocide at Srebrenica by supplying aid to the Bosnian Serbs at a time when it knew those forces had the intent to commit genocide. Bosnia had asked the court to rule on whether Serbia committed genocide during the 1992-95 war. Genocide was outlawed in a UN convention in 1948 after the Nazi Holocaust.
Reading from a lengthy judgement statement before pronouncing the final ruling, Judge Higgins said that in other mass killings of Bosnian Muslims the court was not convinced the perpetrators had the specific intent to commit genocide.
Earlier she said the court found it established that Serbia "was making its considerable military and financial support available" to the Bosnian Serbs.
Reflecting the complexities of the case, the 16 judges deliberated for 10 months.
The court's decisions are binding, without appeal, and enforceable by the UN Security Council.
The Bosnia case touches deep nationalist chords and arouses strong emotions. Some 8000 Muslim men and boys were killed at Srebrenica in July 1995.
The ruling comes 14 years after Bosnia approached the court during the chaos of Yugoslavia's bloody disintegration. The political landscape since has changed dramatically, with Bosnia and Serbia separately seeking membership of the European Union.
"This will be a significant judgement, both from the perspective of the aftermath of the conflict and for international law generally," said Andre Nollkaemper, director of the Amsterdam Centre for International Law at the University of Amsterdam.
Other courts have already ruled that acts of genocide occurred during the Bosnian war, when more than 100,000 people were killed in a Bosnian Serb campaign that gave the world the phrase "ethnic cleansing".
Two Bosnian Serb officers have been convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Radislav Krstic is serving a 35-year prison term for aiding and abetting genocide, and Vidoje Blagojevic is appealing against his 18-year sentence for complicity in genocide.
The Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, died last year in his prison cell in the final weeks of his four-year-long genocide trial. Two other Bosnian Serbs accused of atrocities, Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, remain at large. Critics accuse Serbia of harbouring Mladic.
Bosnia said the Serbian state must accept blame. It argued that Serbia's nationalist ideology incited genocidal hatred, its financial and military aid to the Bosnian Serbs gave them the tools for genocide, and Yugoslav army officers helped drive out Muslims.
Bosnia's advocate, Thomas Franck, told the judges: "It is the accumulation of solitary crimes - the dreadful repetition of evil acts - that emerges finally, clearly, as the super crime of genocide."
Serbia said it was not that simple. Genocide, by definition, required the clear intent to wipe out an ethnic or racial group, an intent which it denied.
Reuters, Associated Press
America Under Zionist Feet and The court of law is the palace to commit crime!
Faruque Ahmed
Acts of horror ┘ a man prays among graves near Srebrenica on Sunday. About 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed near the town in July 1995.Photo: AP
Alexandra Hudson in The HagueFebruary 27, 2007
IN A historic case that put a nation on trial for genocide for the first time, Serbia has been found not guilty.
However, the UN's highest court in The Hague found yesterday that the massacre of about 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995 was indeed genocide, and that Serbia failed to use its clear influence with Bosnian Serbs to prevent it.
The Serbs "should have made the best effort within their power to try and prevent the tragic events then taking shape" in the UN enclave, the scale of which "might have been surmised".
"The court finds that the acts of genocide at Srebrenica cannot be attributed to the respondent's [Serbia's] state organs," said the president of the International Court of Justice, Judge Rosalyn Higgins.
She said it could also not be established that Serbia had been complicit in the genocide at Srebrenica by supplying aid to the Bosnian Serbs at a time when it knew those forces had the intent to commit genocide. Bosnia had asked the court to rule on whether Serbia committed genocide during the 1992-95 war. Genocide was outlawed in a UN convention in 1948 after the Nazi Holocaust.
Reading from a lengthy judgement statement before pronouncing the final ruling, Judge Higgins said that in other mass killings of Bosnian Muslims the court was not convinced the perpetrators had the specific intent to commit genocide.
Earlier she said the court found it established that Serbia "was making its considerable military and financial support available" to the Bosnian Serbs.
Reflecting the complexities of the case, the 16 judges deliberated for 10 months.
The court's decisions are binding, without appeal, and enforceable by the UN Security Council.
The Bosnia case touches deep nationalist chords and arouses strong emotions. Some 8000 Muslim men and boys were killed at Srebrenica in July 1995.
The ruling comes 14 years after Bosnia approached the court during the chaos of Yugoslavia's bloody disintegration. The political landscape since has changed dramatically, with Bosnia and Serbia separately seeking membership of the European Union.
"This will be a significant judgement, both from the perspective of the aftermath of the conflict and for international law generally," said Andre Nollkaemper, director of the Amsterdam Centre for International Law at the University of Amsterdam.
Other courts have already ruled that acts of genocide occurred during the Bosnian war, when more than 100,000 people were killed in a Bosnian Serb campaign that gave the world the phrase "ethnic cleansing".
Two Bosnian Serb officers have been convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Radislav Krstic is serving a 35-year prison term for aiding and abetting genocide, and Vidoje Blagojevic is appealing against his 18-year sentence for complicity in genocide.
The Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, died last year in his prison cell in the final weeks of his four-year-long genocide trial. Two other Bosnian Serbs accused of atrocities, Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, remain at large. Critics accuse Serbia of harbouring Mladic.
Bosnia said the Serbian state must accept blame. It argued that Serbia's nationalist ideology incited genocidal hatred, its financial and military aid to the Bosnian Serbs gave them the tools for genocide, and Yugoslav army officers helped drive out Muslims.
Bosnia's advocate, Thomas Franck, told the judges: "It is the accumulation of solitary crimes - the dreadful repetition of evil acts - that emerges finally, clearly, as the super crime of genocide."
Serbia said it was not that simple. Genocide, by definition, required the clear intent to wipe out an ethnic or racial group, an intent which it denied.
Reuters, Associated Press
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