By Nick Miller
The Hague: Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has been sentenced to life in prison after a failed appeal against his conviction for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
His “most egregious of crimes” were “committed throughout the entire period of the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina and were noted for their sheer scale and systematic cruelty,” Judge Vagn Joensen said as he delivered a summary of the appeal tribunal’s judgement at a UN criminal tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday.
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic enters the court room of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague this week. Credit: AP
Karadzic had appealed against the verdict and 40-year prison term handed down at his first trial in 2016 of his crimes in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
But the judges dismissed his appeal and agreed with prosecutors that given the gravity of his crimes he should be jailed for life.
Karadzic, now 73, had overseen the four-year siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of thousands of men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.
Former Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic (R) and his general, Ratko Mladic.Credit: REUTERS/Ranko Cukovic
American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who brokered the peace accords that ended the war, had called Karadzic "one of the worst, most evil men in the world".
Karadzic had called himself a “psychiatrist and poet, with no military training”, and claimed not to be aware of the horrors taking place around him, and the actions by men under his command.
He had evaded capture for more than a decade after the war, posing as a faith healer and hiding his features under a big beard. He was arrested on a bus in 2008.
In March 2016 Karadzic was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and violating the rule of war in connection with:
- a plan to eliminate all Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb-claimed territory, driving them from their villages and looting their homes,
- the sniping and shelling of Sarajevo that did not discriminate between military and civilian targets, and aimed “to spread terror” – including the infamous shelling of the Markale open-air market in February 1994 that killed 67 and inured more than 140,
- the purge of Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica in 1995, including withholding humanitarian aid causing some to starve, and sending men and boys off for execution, and
- A plan to take UN personnel hostage in order to prevent NATO air strikes.
Judge Joensen said they were the “largest and gravest set of crimes ever attributed to a single person at the ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia]”.
A woman with the Mothers of Srebrenica holds the photographs of two victims of the Bosnian war as she talks to the legal team for Radovan Karadzic, right, after the court upheld his conviction at The Hague, Netherlands.Credit: AP
Karadzic, who was in court for the appeal in a suit and tie and appeared impassive throughout, had appealed against his convictions and 40-year sentence.
He claimed the trial had been unfair, violating his rights to self-representation, had relied on improper evidence and unfairly excluded other evidence.
The Appeals Chamber did identify some irregularities in the trial, and it reversed the trial court’s verdict on a few incidents.
However it found the errors did not invalidate the verdicts on Karadzic’s many other crimes including “genocide, persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, and other inhumane acts… as crimes against humanity, as well as for murder, terror, unlawful attacks on civilians and hostage-taking”.
A Muslim woman prays beside the coffin of her relative, one of 534 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre lined up for a joint burial in Potocari in 2009.
The Appeals Chamber dismissed Karadzic’s claim that he was not aware of the detail in “directive 7”, an order he issued for there to be “an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica and Žepa”.
They confirmed that Karadzic had “active oversight” and knowledge of the operation to kill the Bosnian Muslims removed from Srebrenica.
“Karadžić shared the intent for every Bosnian Muslim male from Srebrenica to be killed,” Judge Vagn Joensen said.
“The (original) 40-year sentence inadequately reflects the extraordinary gravity of Karadzic’s crimes as well as his central and instrumental participation in four joint criminal enterprises.
Tombs at the memorial cemetery for massacre victims in Potocari, near Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina.Credit: AP
“The sentence the Trial Chamber imposed was so unreasonable and plainly unjust that the Appeals Chamber can only infer that the Trial Chamber failed to properly exercise its discretion.”
Bosnian Serbs reacted with dismay to the ruling.
The head of the Serb Democratic Party, which Karadzic founded before the war, said the verdict was “political, unfounded and scandalously unfair”.
But Zeljko Komsic, the Croat member of the Bosnian tripartite presidency, said the verdict was the minimum level of justice for the victims.
"This verdict remains as a permanent written testimony and a lesson to generations to come that no crime will remain unpunished," he said in a press release
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik had anticipated it would go against Karadzic, saying on Monday “everyone knows that the [Hague] court is not fair, does not try people in accordance with the law and does not work in favour of reconciliation”.
Croatia's President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic said “The verdict cannot give back the lives of tens of thousands of victims and alleviate the pain of their families and survivors, but it must serve as a permanent warning."
Analysts have said there are fears the judgment will strengthen nationalist rhetoric and emphasise political divisions in the region.
The head of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia, Bruce Berton, said the verdict was a key step towards justice.
“Our thoughts are with the families of victims, for whom the search for justice is long-lasting and painful. It is a complex and difficult process, but at the same time a process that is crucial," Beta news agency reported Berton said.
The verdict also led to renewed calls for Serbia to recognise the Srebrenica massacres as genocide.