The UN’s Yugoslav war crimes court will pass judgment today on Rasim Delic, one of the most senior Muslim military men to be charged for abuses committed during the 1992 to 1995 war in Bosnia.
The ex-commander of the Bosnian army has pleaded not guilty before The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to murder and cruel treatment of Bosnian Croats and Serbs at the hands of his troops.
The prosecution seeks a 15-year jail term for the 59-year-old ex-general over the murders of at least 74 people and the mistreatment of others between June 1993 and September 1995 — some of them civilians and some prisoners of war.
The crimes were allegedly committed by Muslim extremist fighters called the mujahidin or “holy warriors” who formed a unit of the Bosnian army that was comprised in part of foreign volunteers.
Delic is one of comparatively few Muslims to be indicted by the tribunal, which is frequently accused of partiality by Serbia.
He was tried on the basis of “superior criminal responsibility” for failing to prevent or punish his men’s actions.
“Rasim Delic knew or had reason to know that soldiers of the El Mujahed Detachment under his command and effective control were about to or had committed these acts and failed to take the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent and punish these crimes,” states a case fact sheet.
In one incident in June 1993, Muslim fighters under Delic’s command allegedly opened indiscriminate fire on a group of captured civilians and soldiers, executing survivors by shooting them in the head. Twenty-four people were killed.
The prosecution claims Delic was informed of the crimes but failed to punish the perpetrators, instead awarding some among them the army’s highest honors.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS