Ratko Mladic’s defense case was to open at the Yugoslav war crimes court yesterday, with the Bosnian Serb former army chief of staff accused of masterminding some of Europe’s worst atrocities since World War II.
Mladic, 72, faces 11 charges ranging from hostage-taking to genocide for his role in Bosnia’s brutal 1992 to 1995 conflict in which 100,000 people died and 2.2 million were left homeless.
An unnamed witness was to take the stand at 9:30am before a three-judge bench of the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Photo: AFP
Presiding Judge Alphons Orie has given Mladic’s lawyers 207 hours to question witnesses — the same amount of time given to the prosecution, who finished their case earlier this year, the ICTY said in a statement.
There was no restriction on the number of witnesses defense lawyers could call, it added.
Arrested in Serbia and transferred to the ICTY in 2011, the former Bosnian Serb commander is in particular wanted for his role in the June 1995 massacre of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia.
There, Mladic’s forces overran lightly armed Dutch UN troops protecting the supposedly safe enclave, before murdering the men and boys, and dumping their bodies into mass graves.
Dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia,” the former Bosnian Serb army general is also held responsible for conducting a campaign against residents of Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo during a 44-month siege.
About 10,000 people were killed, many by snipers and shelling.
He has also been charged for taking hostage a group of more than 200 UN peacekeepers during the conflict, keeping them in strategic locations as “human shields” against NATO air strikes.
Mladic, known for his outbursts in court, has denied the charges. He faces life in prison if convicted.
In January, he refused to testify at the trial of former Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadzic, his political counterpart at the time, repeatedly dismissing the UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal as “satanic.”
Karadzic had hoped Mladic would testify that they did not agree or plan to expel Muslims or Croats from areas under Serb control.
The two men 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.
Last month, the ICTY upheld the charges against Mladic in a hearing to see if there was enough evidence to continue trying him after prosecutors closed their case.
Judge Orie ruled then that Mladic “had a case to answer on all counts of the indictment.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese