Guilty of genocide

Associated Press

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal handed down its first conviction for genocide, finding a Bosnian Serb general guilty Thursday for the deaths of up to 8,000 Muslims at the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica.

The verdict and 46-year sentence for Gen. Radislav Krstic could be a harbinger of more genocide trials of those at the top of the command chain in the Balkan wars, including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic. Both are fugitives.

The ruling could also provide a precedent for possible indictments against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who faces lesser charges in the persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

It was the first time that the U.N. court, established in 1993 to prosecute war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, convicted a suspect of genocide. The crime, introduced in international law in 1948 after the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews in World War II, refers to “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

The 255-page verdict recounted emotional scenes of family separations at Srebrenica in 1995, of bound and blindfolded victims slaughtered within sight of the bulldozers preparing their graves, of widows and children haunted by memories of their men, and of an operation to hide mutilated corpses. The judges admitted difficulty in remaining calm as they reviewed the gruesome evidence.

Watching live television coverage of the verdict in Bosnia, women from Srebrenica wept and held hands as the judge delivered the decision. They screamed in outrage at the sentence, saying it was too lenient.

“Let him go and come back among us. We will give him a verdict,” said Behara Hasanovic. “For 10,000 of our sons, only 46 years! His people have ripped my son from my arms.”

Krstic, 53, received the longest sentence yet passed by the tribunal, although it was less than the eight life terms sought by the prosecution.

He was also convicted of persecution and inhumane treatment for the forceable transfer of 30,000 refugees, mostly women and the elderly, who had sought protection at a Dutch-manned U.N. base in Potocari near Srebrenica.

Defense attorney Nenad Petrusic said he was surprised by the judgment and that Krstic will appeal.

The Srebrenica killings were Europe’s worst civilian massacre since World War II. And the genocide verdict places the tragedy in the historical record much as the 1946 Nuremberg trials endure as an official condemnation of Nazi genocide.