Mladic refuses to testify in Karadzic war crimes trial

Mladic refuses to testify in Karadzic war crimes trial

 

By Jan Hennop (AFP)

 

[caption id="attachment_11547" align="alignnone" width="400"] (Former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic sits at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, on May 16, 2012 (Pool/AFP/File, Toussaint Kluiters))[/caption]

 

The Hague — Former Bosnian Serb army leader Ratko Mladic on Tuesday refused to testify at the trial of his political alter ego Radovan Karadzic, repeatedly dismissing the UN's Yugoslav war crimes tribunal as "satanic".

 

The hearing before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was supposed to shed light on the relationship between Karadzic and Mladic during the 1995 fall of Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo during Bosnia's bloody three-year war.

 

Instead, it turned into a theatre of the absurd, with Mladic first calling the tribunal "satanic", then asking for security personnel to fetch his false teeth, and finally flatly refusing to answer Karadzic's questions.

 

"I do not want to testify and refuse to testify for reasons of my health and that it would prejudice my own case," replied a belligerent Mladic to five questions put by Karadzic -- who was defending himself -- about the July 1995 massacre at the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica and the bloody 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.

 

Almost 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys died at the hands of the Bosnian Serb army after the supposedly safe UN enclave at Srebrenica was overrun by troops commanded by Mladic.

 

Some 10,000 people died in Sarajevo in what prosecutors said was a "campaign of terror" through sniping and shelling, starting in May 1992.

 

"I do not recognise this hate court. It is a satanic court," Mladic said as he waved a seven-page statement around which he demanded he be allowed to read to the judges.

 

He was speaking loudly in Serbian as he was finally escorted out of the courtroom, still waving his statement after judges refused his request.

 

"You have confirmed my theory that the tribunal is not a court of law but a satanic court," Mladic said as he was led away.

 

As he walked past Karadzic, he told him in Serbian: "Radovan, thank you. I am sorry, but these idiots won't allow me to speak. They defend NATO."

 

Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon had however told Mladic he would not be compelled to testify if the former commander believed it would prejudice his own case.

 

Mladic requests false teeth

 

Earlier, Mladic, dressed in a grey suit took the oath before the tribunal before asking for his false teeth, a request met with laughter from the public gallery.

 

"Could the security people please bring my teeth so that I can speak better?" asked Mladic, in an apparent attempt to ridicule the court.

 

The court was subsequently adjourned for 20 minutes so as to locate the dentures belonging to the man known as the "Butcher of Bosnia" for his alleged role in the Srebrenica massacre.

 

Both Mladic and Karadzic have been charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity over their roles in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, in which 100,000 people died and at least 2.2 million others were displaced.

 

Karadzic had hoped that Mladic would testify that they did not agree or plan to expel Muslims or Croats from areas under Serb control.

 

The court had to subpoena Mladic, 71, to force him to testify as a defence witness in Karadzic's trial, with his lawyer Branko Lukic on Tuesday making a final attempt to prevent him from having to speak.

 

"We believe Mr Mladic is unfit for testimony," Lukic said.

 

People with "deception of memory", "they make up facts and believe those facts are the truth," he said.

 

"He is not able to concentrate on a single document."

 

In his refusal to testify, Mladic had also cited his health, the amount of time taken up by his own trial and the fact that he might incriminate himself.

 

But judges previously rejected the arguments, saying Mladic was in a unique position to recount the information he had given the accused in relation to incidents he was allegedly involved in.

 

Karadzic "is trying to do his best to get all the information from all available sources as to what happened during the war in Bosnia," his legal advisor Peter Robinson told journalists outside the court.

 

"He is disappointed that the trial chamber did not allow general Mladic to contribute," Robinson said.

 

The 68-year-old Karadzic is accused of authorising so-called "ethnic cleansing" in the bitter war against Bosnia's Muslim-led government.

 

The ICTY was created in 1993 to try perpetrators of war crimes committed during the former Yugoslavia's bloody break-up.

 

Karadzic and Mladic could have been tried together had they been arrested around the same time.

 

But Karadzic was arrested in July 2008 and Mladic in May 2011.

 

The two men are currently housed in the same detention unit in The Hague.

 

Copyright © 2014 AFP. All rights reserved.

 

(Agence France-Presse, 29 Wednesday January 2014 The Roman)

Sarajevski proces, 30-godišnja državna tajna Sarajevo Process, 30-year-old state secret

Sarajevski proces, 30-godišnja državna tajna

 

Suđenje muslimanskim intelektualcima u Sarajevskom procesu još uvijek ima karakter 'vrlo tajne' informacije.

 

Prije tačno 30 godina održano je jedno od najpoznatijih političkih suđenja u bivšoj Jugoslaviji - Sarajevski proces.

 

Međutim, arhiva jugoslovenske Službe državne bezbjednosti (SDB) o tom slučaju, a koju je u Bosni i Hercegovini naslijedila Obavještajno-sigurnosna agencija (OSA) i dalje je strogo čuvana državna tajna.

 

Džemaludin Latić je pjesnik.

 

Danas slobodno može recitovati svoje pjesme i sevdalinke.

 

Ali prije 30 godina, upravo je zbog ovakvih stihova završio iza rešetaka.

 

''Većina inkriminacija su bile iste, u verbalnom deliktu, a moja posebna inkriminacija, na koju se i danas ponosim, jeste da sam tvrdio da je sevdalinka najljepša ljubavna pjesma na svijetu“, kaže Latić.

 

On je osuđen 1983. godine zajedno sa još 12 muslimanskih aktivista na šest godina teške robije.

 

To suđenje, za koje bivši osuđenici, ali i brojni historičari, kažu da je bio montirani politički proces, postat će poznato kao ''Sarajevski proces''.

 

Dio istrage bio je povjeren SDB-u.

 

U podrumu zgrade Obavještajno-sigurnosne službe BiH smještena je tajna arhiva SDB-a, koja, i 20 godina nakon pada komunizma, i dalje nije dostupna javnosti.''

 

Cenziriran dosje

 

Latić je zatražio svoj dosje od OSA-e, ali je dobio tek manji dio.

 

Crnim flomasterom bila su iskrižana imena obavještajaca i doušnika.

 

Reporter Al Jazeere Harun Karčić je također zatražio pristup istoj arhivi, i dobio sljedeći odgovor: ''Uvidom u dokumentaciju utvrđeno je da ista nosi oznaku tajnosti 'Državna tajna', što po članu 86. Zakona o zaštiti tajnih podataka (Službeni glasnik BiH, broj 54/05 i 12/09) odgovara stepenu tajnosti 'vrlo tajno' te bi otkrivanje traženih informacija, koje sadrže imena osoba i izvora, predstavljalo kršenje odredbi Zakona o zaštiti tajnih podataka.''

 

Midhat Izmirlija izučava tranzicijsku pravdu u zemaljama istočne Evrope.

 

Za njega je odgovor Obaviještajno-sigurnosne agencije iznenađujući.

 

''To je stvarno iznenađujuće da se radi o zaštićenim dokumentima. Naravno, osobe koje bi imale potrebe ili želju da znaju da li su bile pračene, da li su bile špijunirane, da li su njihova prava kršena, imale bi svakako pravo pristupa tim arhivama. Gledajući iskustva drugih zemalja, recimo Istočne Njemačke i njihove tajne službe Stassi, te su arhive svakako dostupne'', kaže Midhat Izmirlija sa Pravnog fakulteta u Sarajevu.

 

Lustracija nije provedena u Bosni i Hercegovini.

 

Bivši saradnici SDB-a, ali i čelnici komunističkog vrha koji su davali naređenja za politička suđenja, danas slobodno hodaju ulicama BiH.

 

Džemaludin Latić smatra da mu nijedan zakon neće vratiti godine provedene u teškoj robiji zbog verbalnog delikta.

 

(Izvor: Al Jazeera)

 

(Al Jazeera Balkans, 20 nedjelja oktobar 2013 Rimski)

 

Sarajevo Process, 30-year-old state secret

 

Trial of Muslim intellectuals in the Sarajevo process still has the character of 'very secret' information.

 

Exactly 30 years ago held one of the most famous political trials in the former Yugoslavia-Sarajevo process.

 

However, the archives of the Yugoslav State Security Service (SDB) on the case, which was in Bosnia and Herzegovina inherited Intelligence and Security Agency (OSA) remains a closely guarded state secret

 

Džemaludin Latić poet.

 

Today is free to recite songs and singers.

 

But 30 years ago, it was because of these verses behind bars.

 

''Most incrimination were the same, the verbal act, and my special incrimination, to which it still proud of, is that I argued that Sevdalinka beautiful love song in the world," says petals.

 

He was convicted in 1983, together with 12 other Muslim activists to six years' hard labor.

 

This trial, in which former prisoners, and many historians, say it was rigged political process, it will become known as the ''process'' Sarajevo .

 

Part of the investigation was entrusted to the SDB.

 

In the basement of the Intelligence and Security Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina is located in the secret archives of SDB, which, 20 years after the fall of communism, and still is not available to the public. '

 

Cenziriran record

 

Latić requested his file from OSA, but got only a small part.

 

Black felt were mongrelized names of agents and informers.

 

Reporter Al Jazeera Harun Karčić also requested access to the same archive, and got the following response : ''After examining the record shows that it bears the mark of secrecy ‘State secret', as per Section 86. Law on the Protection of Classified Information (Official Gazette, No. 54 /05 and 12/ 09) corresponds to the degree of secrecy 'top secret ' and the disclosure of the requested information, which contain the names of people and resources, in violation of the provisions of the Law on the protection of classified information.''

 

Midhat Izmirlija studying transitional justice in countries in Eastern Europe.

 

For him, the answer to the intelligence and security agencies surprising.

 

''It's really amazing that the documents were protected. Of course, people would have no need or desire to know whether they were followed, whether they were bugged, if their rights are violated, they would have certainly a right of access to their archives. Looking at the experience of other countries, like East Germany and their secret services Stassi, and the archive is certainly available,'' said Midhat Izmirlija the Law Faculty in Sarajevo.

 

Lustration is not carried out in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

Former associates of SDB, and the top communist leaders who gave orders for a political trial, now free to walk the streets of BiH.

 

Džemaludin Latić considers that no law will not come back years in prison due to severe verbal assault.

 

(Source: Al Jazeera )

 

(Al Jazeera Balkans, 20 Sunday October 2013 The Roman)

(Translated: R.S.F. toshiki speed news press, Agence France-Presse, 21 Monday October 2013 The Roman)