Kosovo trial clears Serbia leader

Published by You on 26 February, 2009 - 18:15

Kosovo trial clears Serbia leader

Serbian ex-President Milan Milutinovic has been acquitted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo by a UN war crimes tribunal.

Five former top Serbian officials were found guilty on some or all the charges relating to the 1990s conflict. Their sentences range from 15 to 22 years.

It was the court's first ruling on alleged crimes committed by Serbian forces in the breakaway region.

Mr Milutinovic was seen largely as a figurehead president during that time.

The court found that the 66-year-old, who led Serbia from December 1997 to December 2002, had no direct control over the Yugoslav army. His release from custody was ordered...

Read more @ BBC News

Submitted by You on 26 February, 2009 - 18:16

Kill one person and you get life in prison/death depending on where you are tried.

Kill a hundred plus and you get 15 years.

Justice for all.

—

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.

Submitted by You on 26 February, 2009 - 22:33

Witness to Serb massacre

'No corpse, no crime' was the chilling order made by Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, evidence that the very top of Serbia's police state organised the cover-up of mass killings that happened in Kosovo that year.

Today five of Milosevic's henchmen were convicted of orchestrating a joint criminal enterprise of murder, torture and deportation against ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.

They have been sentenced to a total of 96 years.

Three years ago I gave evidence at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal at the Hague against the President, the Deputy Prime Minister, an Army Chief of Staff, a brace of generals and a police chief. The ex-President was found not guilty but the rest were convicted.

The six accused were former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Šainovic, Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff Dragoljub Ojdanic, Yugoslav Army generals Nebojša Pavkovic and Vladimir Lazarevic, and Serbian police General Sreten Lukic.

They all served during Slobodan Milosevic's reign of terror in Kosovo, unleashed after Nato bombs fell on Belgrade.

Until I popped up in The Hague I had never met any of these gents.

The convictions raise big questions about the rights and wrongs of victors' justice and who, exactly, defines what is a war crime. Chechnya? Iraq? Tibet? Gaza? Issues which, frankly, are above my pay grade.

Massacre

What I do know is what I saw with my own eyes.

In the summer of 1999, immediately after Nato moved in to Kosovo, I arrived in a village called Little Krushe in the far south-western corner of Kosovo, a few miles from the border with Albania.

I was looking for a hay barn where, survivors had told me, more than 100 men and boys had been machine-gunned.

Instead, I found two holes in the ground.

The Serbs had dynamited the barn and obliterated all evidence of the dead...

Read more @ BBC News

—

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.

Submitted by Ya'qub on 28 February, 2009 - 13:00

You wrote:
Kill one person and you get life in prison/death depending on where you are tried.

Kill a hundred plus and you get 15 years.

Justice for all.

Hmm... 'I think in the UK if you pay someone to murder someone else (like a hitman) the penalty is the same as if you'd done it yourself.

i.e. life imprisonment.

—

Don't just do something! Stand there.

Post reply