Justice catches up with dark forces of Serbian nationalism

Published on Thursday 31 July 2008 22:16

THE International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the UN Security Council in May 1993.

Based in The Hague, it was the first international body for the prosecution of war crimes since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after the Second World War.

The tribunal has jurisdiction over individuals responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the territory of the former Yugoslavia after 1 January, 1991. So far it has indicted 161 people. At present, 38 indicted war criminals are in custody in The Hague.

There are 27 people currently on trial. Seventeen others are at various stages of proceedings and dozens of others have been passed to courts in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia.

Two people are at still at large – Radovan Karadzic's military commander, Ratko Mladic, also charged with the genocide of Bosnian Muslims and Goran Hadzic, a Croatian Serb official, indicted for planning the murder and deportation of hundreds of non-Serbs in the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia.

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, died in detention in March 2006, just months before a verdict was due in his four-year trial.

Radislav Krstic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army's Drina Corps in 1995, was the first person convicted of genocide by the court, in August 2001. He was jailed for 46 years, but his sentence was reduced to 35, and the offence cut to one of aiding and abetting genocide.

Former Bosnian Serb army commander Vidoje Blagojevic was also found guilty, in 2005, of aiding and abetting genocide, and sentenced to 18 years.

Milan Babic, ex-leader of the rebel Serbs in Croatia's Krajina region, was jailed for 13 years in 2004 for his role in the ethnic cleansing of almost 80,000 Croats in 1991. He committed suicide in 2006.

Vojislav Seselj, leader of Serbia's Radical Party, is on trial on charges including the murder, torture and persecution of non-Serbs.