Foreign
ALMOST 26 years after the Srebrenica genocide, the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal on Tuesday is scheduled to deliver its final verdict.
The verdict is on one of the presumed main perpetrators, former Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic.
In the first instance, the now 78-year-old accused was sentenced to life imprisonment, it is expected that the judges will confirm this sentence in his appeal.
Mladic, who became known as the “Butcher of the Balkans’’ during the 1992 to 1995 Bosnian War, wants to be acquitted.
In 2017, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, including the years-long siege of Sarajevo with over 10,000 deaths.
The crimes also include the persecution and expulsion of Bosnian Muslims and Croats and the Srebrenica genocide.
Under Mladic’s leadership, Serbian troops had overrun the UN-protected zone of Srebrenica in 1995 and subsequently murdered more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys.
The Srebrenica massacre, determined to have been genocide by the UN International Court of Justice in 2007, is regarded as the worst atrocity in Europe since the Holocaust.
In March 2019, the ex-Gen.’s political companion, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, 75, had already been sentenced to life imprisonment on appeal also for the Srebrenica genocide. (dpa/NAN)
– June 08, 2021 @ 09:11 GMT
Tags: Final Srebrenica genocide verdict expected for ex- Gen. Mladic
