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June 30, 2006
Holland: Bosnian Muslim Convicted Of War Crimes - Light Sentence
The atrocities of Srebreneca, a small silver-mining town in Bosnia, are remembered now more for the terrible events of July 1995, when Bosnian Serb leaders Ratko Miladic and Radnan Karodic massacred more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys from the town.
This event was inexcusable and despicable, but the media seems to ignore the events that had gone on for three years in the region before that massacre took place. Bosnian Muslims troops, under the command of Naser Oric (pictured top left, as he was then) committed disgusting obscenities. Serb civilian victims were mutlitated by having eyes gouged, heads opened, hearts removed. A slide show of 34 images of atrocities committed between 1992 and 1995 can be found here.
Today, the UN International War Crimes Tribunal, based at the Hague in the Netherlands found Nacer Oric guilty of war crimes and sentenced him to a mere two years jail, states AGence France Presse via Yahoo, Associated Press via Forbes and the Washington Post, AKI and Reuters AlertNet.
Oric has been on trial since October 6, 2004. A full account of his first indictment can be found here, with the second amended indictment here. He was charged with allowing the torturing and murdering seven Serbs in the period leading up to the Srebrenica massacre.
People under his command committed torture upon their victims, tying Serb detainees to pillars, extracting their teeth with pliers, forcing them to drink urine. The judges found that in two periods in 1992 and again 1993, his troops battered Serb prisoners with wooden planks, iron rods and baseball bats, and used rusty pliers to extract teeth. At least six people died as a result of this treatment.
The judges found that Oric should have been aware of what was going on, and should have prevented their mistreatment. But they decided unanimously to express leniency in the sentence, because of the difficulties he faced in a region starved of food, with poorly trained forces, and little communication with others.
A former policeman and bodyguard of Slobodan Milosevic, Oric was 25 in 1992, with no military training or experience. In their verdict, they said: "It was a continuous uphill struggle that, in actual fact, achieved very few results."
Because Oric has been in custody since April 2003, the judges ordered his release. The panel of judges under Carmel Agius at the tribunal acquitted Oric of four counts of failing to discharge his duties and the wanton destruction of Serb villages, which took place (pictured below left is the burned church and village hall at Kravica, north of Srebrenica) between 1992 and 1995.
The prosecutors had sought an 18 year prison term, but a defense witness, Sabra Kolenovic, said: "I think even a minute is not fair."
The President of Serba, Boris Tadic, said from Belgrade that the verdict was "scandalous". Though regarded as a hero by Bosnian Muslims, many Serbs believe that the action of Naser Oric's troops led directly to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at June 30, 2006 11:32 PM
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