Mladic removed from The Hague court

Al Jazeera today:

UN court enters 'not guilty' pleas for Mladic

Ex-Bosnian Serb general removed from courtroom after disrupting judge's attempts to read out the charges against him.
Last Modified: 04 Jul 2011 10:11

Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army chief, has been removed from the UN war crimes court at The Hague after refusing to enter a plea and disrupting the judge's attempts to read out the charges against him.

Later Judge Alphons Orie of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which is handling the case, entered formal pleas of not guilty on behalf of Mladic to the various charges against him.

These charges include genocide, and relate to the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, Europe's worst massacre since World War II.

Having threatened to boycott his second hearing, Mladic did appear in court on Monday. But he spent several minutes demanding different legal representation and requesting a delay before having to plead.

"No, no, I'm not going to listen to this without my lawyer," Mladic shouted as he removed his translation headphones when Orie began reading out the charges.

"Who are you? You're not allowing me to breathe."

Mladic was represented by a court-appointed lawyer. Orie said the court would look into allowing him to be represented in future by other lawyers of his choice.

Al Jazeera's correspondent, Andrew Simmons, reported from outside the court at The Hague, "They are now waiting for a lawyer to be appointed and they say that the delay is from Mladic.

"He is going to appoint a lawyer from Blegrade, one from Russia....he could change his pleas, if he wishes to, within 3 months."

Tracked down, arrested and extradited from Serbia in May after 16 years on the run, Mladic, 69, defiantly rejected war crimes charges against him as "obnoxious" and "monstrous" when he was formally charged at the war crimes court last month.

Boycott threat

Earlier in on Monday, his Belgrade-based attorney, Milos Saljic, had said that Mladic would boycott the hearing and demand that he be represented by his own defence lawyers.

Mladic has lodged a list of preferred defence lawyers with the court, including Saljic and a Russian lawyer.

Mladic is accused of orchestrating a campaign to seize territory for Serbs after Bosnia and Herzegovina, following Croatia, broke away from the Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Five years of war followed that break-up, leaving at least 130,000 people dead.

Mladic's former political chief, Radovan Karadzic, boycotted the start of his trial in 2009, and it is considered unlikely that the tribunal would force Mladic to appear on Monday.

Nerma Jelacic, a court spokeswoman, declined to comment, saying the court had received no communication from Mladic.

The former soldier has said he was only defending his country and people during the Bosnia war, which lasted from 1992 to 1995.

Serge Brammertz, a Hague prosecutor, has said Mladic used his power to commit brutal atrocities and must answer for it.

But Serb nationalists believe Mladic defended the nation and did no worse than Croat or Bosnian Muslim army commanders.

From what I remember, LL, Mladic was in a class all of his own...

bb1 wrote:From what I remember, LL, Mladic was in a class all of his own...

He may think he is, bonny, but the Dutch Judge is someone to really reckon with. He gives no quarter, he rules his court fairly and justly, but he is unflappable and no-one, but no-one, gets away with not following the rules as laid down for the Haugue WCT. I thought I might run with this, as and when news becomes available, if that is oaky with you? LL

Cross purposes - I meant a class of his own when it came to atrocities, LL!
By all means keep track of this, LL, it will be interesting to see where this leads - he certainly isn't the only one who should be in the dock, IMO.

bb1 wrote:Cross purposes - I meant a class of his own when it came to atrocities, LL!
By all means keep track of this, LL, it will be interesting to see where this leads - he certainly isn't the only one who should be in the dock, IMO.

I knew what you meant, I maybe phrased my answer a bit skewack. Radovic is still on trial thgere; same Judge, been going on 4 years now; however, there is talk of combining the two trials as the charges are identical. At present Mladic is stalling over his lawyers, insisting on one from Serbia and one from Russia. However, he didn't deliver the names to the Tribunal in time for the strict checking of these men to be completed within the 30 days he was given before the proper arraingement was to take place. Mladic should remember that Milosevic tried some of these tactics and died in prison before the trial was concluded. Any way he twists, he isn't going to get out of this, there is too much visual evidence, andmany survivors, to prove he was the main instigators of these abominable crimes. I will dig out some you tube videos to show what they do have against both of them; however, Mladic was the overall military commander so he has to take full responsibilityfor the actual massacres; Karadic was the ruling political chief. LL

Lamplighter wrote:

bb1 wrote:Cross purposes - I meant a class of his own when it came to atrocities, LL!
By all means keep track of this, LL, it will be interesting to see where this leads - he certainly isn't the only one who should be in the dock, IMO.

I knew what you meant, I maybe phrased my answer a bit skewack. Radovic is still on trial thgere; same Judge, been going on 4 years now; however, there is talk of combining the two trials as the charges are identical. At present Mladic is stalling over his lawyers, insisting on one from Serbia and one from Russia. However, he didn't deliver the names to the Tribunal in time for the strict checking of these men to be completed within the 30 days he was given before the proper arraingement was to take place. Mladic should remember that Milosevic tried some of these tactics and died in prison before the trial was concluded. Any way he twists, he isn't going to get out of this, there is too much visual evidence, andmany survivors, to prove he was the main instigators of these abominable crimes. I will dig out some you tube videos to show what they do have against both of them; however, Mladic was the overall military commander so he has to take full responsibilityfor the actual massacres; Karadic was the ruling political chief. LL

I personally wouldn't waste money on a trial. I would turn him over to the surviving family members of those he killed. That would be justice in the truest sense.

Some videos on aspects of what happened:

Al Jazeera

Dutch state found guilty of Srebrenica deaths
Hague court finds peacekeepers at fault for handing over three Muslim men to Serb forces during 1992 Bosnia war.
Last Modified: 05 Jul 2011 09:09

The Dutch state has been found responsible by a court in The Hague for the deaths of three Muslim men after the fall of Srebrenica during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

"The court ruled that the Dutch state is responsible for the death of these men because Dutchbat (Dutch UN troops) should not have handed them over," a spokeswoman for the court said on Tuesday.

Dutch UN peacekeeping troops were in charge of the UN-declared Srebrenica 'safe area' in July 1995 when Bosnian Serb forces overran the enclave and later killed 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys.

Relatives of a local electrician who assisted the Dutch but was killed at Srebrenica, and the troops' local interpreter, whose father and brother are also believed to have died, lodged legal action against the Dutch state seeking damages.

In its ruling, the court said the Dutch state was responsible for the death of these men because the Dutchbat should not have allowed the men to leave the safe area or fall into the hands of the Bosnian Serb forces.

"The Dutchbat had been witness to multiple incidents in which the Bosnian Serbs mistreated or killed male refugees outside the compound," the court said in its ruling.

"The Dutch therefore knew that ... the men were at great risk if they were to leave the compound."

Several lawsuits

The Dutch government, which has faced several lawsuits in recent years over the massacre, has always insisted that its troops were abandoned by the United Nations, which provided them no air support.

Al Jazeera Andrew Simmons, reporting live from The Hague, said that the ruling was significant as it could open up the door for compensation claims.

"The last decision of the court was that the UN was responsible for the mandate, and therefore the state was not responsible," our correspondent said.

"Hasan Nuhanovic, a translator with the UN, saw his family members being handed over. He was protected because he worked for the UN, but his family was taken by the Serb troops and killed."

Government lawyer Karlijn Teuben said after the latest ruling she would have to study the decision before deciding whether to appeal.

The landmark ruling could open the path to other compensation claims by victims who claim they should have been protected by Dutch United Nations peacekeepers during the July 1995 mass killings by Bosnian Serb troops.

Specific ruling

A case launched by the group Mothers of Srebrenica against the Dutch state is now before the Dutch Supreme Court, where lawyers are seeking a referral of the case to the European Court of Justice to also challenge the immunity of the United Nations.

In its ruling on Tuesday, the appeals court said its decision only applied to the specific case of the three Muslim men and no ruling had been made over the situation of the other refugees at Srebrenica.

However, the court said that Dutch troops were initially operating under UN orders and that an "exceptional situation" developed after the fall of Srebrenica.

Since the Dutch government tried to intervene in the situation, it could be held responsible for the deaths of three men, the court said.

The Srebrenica massacre remains a sensitive issue in the Netherlands, where the government fell in 2002 after a damning report by the Dutch Institute for War Documentation into the events surroundings the killings.