The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic resumed yesterday with the opening statement of the former Yugoslav president.
Milosevic has been on trial in The Hague for over two years for allegedly masterminding the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Milosevic is charged with 10 counts of crimes against humanity including persecution, extermination, torture and inhumane acts during the war in Croatia which left more than 25,000 people dead.
He is also accused over the deportation of at least 170,000 Croats and other non-Serbs and the unlawful confinement of thousands in inhumane conditions.
The indictment names over 700 people who were killed from the Krajina region, eastern and western Slavonia and during the 1991 attack on Vukovar hospital.
After Serb forces took control of Vukovar in November 1991, they took 255 Croat and non-Serb patients from the hospital and allegedly "beat and tortured the victims for hours." Eventually all were shot and killed on a remote farm and buried in a mass grave.
Milosevic also faces 22 counts of war crimes related to the same atrocities.
Milosevic faces two counts of genocide and complicity in genocide, the gravest of war crimes, for the 1995 Serb massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim boys and men at Srebrenica and the detention of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats in camps in inhumane conditions.
He is further charged with 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including persecution, murder and torture.
The Geneva Convention defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
The genocide charge specifically lists "the widespread killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims during and after the take-over of territories," specifically naming the 1995 massacre of Srebrenica.
Milosevic is also cited for the killing of thousands of non-Serbs in detention camps, such as the infamous Omarska and Keraterm camps in northwestern Bosnia.
The indictment lists over 9,000 dead and states that the former president participated in a "joint criminal enterprise," the purpose of which was the "forcible and permanent removal of the majority of non-Serbs" from certain areas in Bosnia.
In all more than 200,000 people were killed during the Bosnian war.
Milosevic, together with four of his allies in a "joint criminal enterprise," is accused of having "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in a deliberate and widespread or systematic campaign of terror and violence directed at Kosovo Albanian civilians."
There are four charges of crimes against humanity and one of war crimes against Milosevic including deportation, forcible transfer, murder and persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds.
In 1998-1999 the Yugoslav government cracked down on ethnic Albanians living in the Serbian province of Kosovo. During the conflict more than 10,000 people lost their lives.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS