Hugo Best: Mladic trial: Prosecution to focus on Srebrenica massacre

Coordinates	33�51?35.9?N151�12?40?N
Name	Ratko Mladi? ????? ??????
Birth date	March 12, 1943
Birth place	Bo?anovi?i, Kalinovik, The Kingdom of Yugoslavia today's Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Allegiance	Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Republic of Serbian Krajina Republika Srpska
Serviceyears	1965?1995
Rank	Colonel General
Commands	9th Corps, Yugoslav People's Army (JNA)2nd Military District Headquarters, JNA Army of Republika Srpska
Battles	Croatian War of Independence Operation Coast-91 Bosnian War Siege of Sarajevo Srebrenica massacre
Status	Unknown
Awards	Order of Brotherhood and UnityOrder of Military MeritsOrder of the People's Army
Laterwork	}}

Ratko Mladi? (Serbian Cyrillic: ????? ??????, , born 12 March 1943) is an accused war criminal and a former Bosnian Serb military leader. On May 31, 2011, Mladi? was extradited to The Hague, where he was processed at the detention center that holds suspects for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). His trial began on 3 June 2011.

Mladi? came to prominence in the Yugoslav Wars, initially as a high-ranking officer of the Yugoslav People's Army and subsequently as the Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb Army) in the Bosnian War of 1992?1995. In 1995, he was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. As the top military general with command responsibility, Mladi? was accused by the ICTY of being responsible for the 1992?1995 Siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre?the largest mass murder in Europe since the immediate aftermath of World War II.

In July 1996 the Trial Chamber of the ICTY, proceeding in the absence of Mladi? under the ICTY's Rule 61, confirmed all counts of the original indictments, finding there were reasonable grounds to believe he had committed the alleged crimes, and issued an international arrest warrant. Serbia and the United States offered ?5�million for information leading to Mladi?'s capture and arrest. In October 2010, Serbia intensified the hunt by increasing the reward for Mladi?'s capture from ?5�million to ?10�million. Serbia also asked Interpol for help in locating the fugitive. Mladi? nevertheless managed to remain at large for nearly sixteen years; on 26 May 2011, Serbian security forces arrested him in Lazarevo, Serbia. His capture was considered to be one of the pre-conditions for Serbia joining the European Union.

A long-time member of the Yugoslav Communist Party, Mladi? began his career in the Yugoslav People's Army in 1965 and had an undistinguished career in Communist Yugoslavia until the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars in 1991.

Early life and military career

Mladi? was born in the village of Bo?anovi?i located near Mount Treskavica, southeast of Sarajevo, in the municipality of Kalinovik west of Gora?de () on 12 March 1943. The place was at the time a part of the short-lived Independent State of Croatia, or NDH, a fascist puppet-state created after Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy invaded and partitioned the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. Mladi?'s father, a Bosnian Serb communist partisan, was killed in 1945 while leading a partisan attack on the home village of Ante Paveli?.

Mladi? entered the Military Industry School in Zemun in 1961, then went on to the KOV Military Academy, and then Officers Academy, graduating at the top of his class in 1965 with a grade of 9.57. The same year, he joined the Yugoslav Communist Party, remaining a member until the party disintegrated in 1990. His first post as an officer was in Skopje, where he was the youngest soldier in the unit which he commanded. Beginning as a second lieutenant, he proved himself to be a capable officer, first commanding a platoon, then a battalion, and then a brigade. In 1989 he was promoted to the post of head of the Education Department of the Third Military District of Skopje.

Role in the Yugoslav wars

In June 1991, Mladi? was promoted to Deputy Commander of the Pristina Corps in Kosovo at a time of high tension between Serbs and Kosovo's majority Albanian population. That year, Mladi? was given command of the 9th Corps of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), and led this formation against Croatian forces in Knin, the capital of the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina. On 4 October 1991, he was promoted to Major General. The JNA forces under his command participated in the Croatian War, notably during Operation Coastline 91 in an attempt to sever Dalmatia from the rest of Croatia, which failed even though the JNA forces were much more heavily armed and outnumbered the Croatian forces substantially. Among other things, Mladi? helped Milan Marti?'s paramilitary take the village of Kijevo.

On 24 April 1992, Mladi? was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel General. On 2 May 1992, one month after the Bosnian Republic's declaration of independence, Mladi? and his generals blockaded the city of Sarajevo, shutting off all traffic in and out of the city, as well as water and electricity. This began the four-year Siege of Sarajevo, the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. The city was bombarded with shells and random shooting from the guns of snipers. On 9 May 1992, he assumed the post of Chief of Staff/Deputy Commander of the Second Military District Headquarters of the JNA in Sarajevo. The next day, Mladi? assumed the command of the Second Military District Headquarters of the JNA.

On 12 May 1992, in response to Bosnia's secession from Yugoslavia, the separatist Bosnian Serb Parliament voted to create the VRS, or Army of Republika Srpska. At the same time, Mladi? was appointed Commander of the Main Staff of the VRS, a position he held until December 1996. (In May 1992, after the withdrawal of JNA forces from Bosnia, the JNA Second Military District became the nucleus of the Main Staff of the VRS.) On 24 June 1994, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel General over the approximately 80,000 troops stationed in the area.

In July 1995, troops commanded by Mladi?, harried by NATO air strikes intended to force compliance with a UN ultimatum to remove heavy weapons from the Sarajevo area, overran and occupied the UN safe areas of Srebrenica and ?epa. At Srebrenica over 40,000 Bosniaks who had sought safety there were expelled. An estimated 8,300 were murdered, allegedly on Mladi?'s order. In November 1995, when Judge Fouad Riad indicted Mladi? for genocide in Srebrenica at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, he stated that the events were "Truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history".

On 4 August 1995, with a huge Croatian military force poised to attack the Serb-held Krajina region in central Croatia, Radovan Karad?i? announced he was removing Mladi? from his commandant post and assuming personal command of the VRS himself. Karad?i? blamed Mladi? for the loss of two key Serb towns in western Bosnia that had recently fallen to the Croats, and he used the loss of the towns as the excuse to announce his surprise command structure changes. Mladi? was demoted to an "adviser". He refused to go quietly, claiming the support of both the Bosnian Serb military as well as the people. Karad?i? countered by attempting to pull political rank as well as denouncing Mladi? as a "madman," but Mladi?'s obvious popular support forced Karad?i? to rescind his order on 11 August.

On 8 November 1996, the President of the Bosnian Serb Republic, Biljana Plav?i?, dismissed Mladi? from his post. He continued to receive a pension until November 2005.

Indictment by the ICTY

On 24 July 1995, Mladi? was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for genocide, crimes against humanity, and numerous war crimes (including crimes relating to the alleged sniping campaign against civilians in Sarajevo). On 16 November 1995, the charges were expanded to include charges of war crimes for the attack on the UN-declared safe area of Srebrenica in July 1995.

A fugitive from the ICTY, he was suspected to be hiding either in Serbia or in Republika Srpska. Mladi? was reportedly seen attending a football match between China and Yugoslavia in Belgrade in March 2000. He entered through a VIP entrance and sat in a private box surrounded by eight armed bodyguards. Some claim that he has been seen in a suburb of Moscow, and that he is "regularly" in Thessaloniki and Athens, which raised suspicions that numerous fake reports were sent to cover his trail. Some reports said he took refuge in his wartime bunker in Han Pijesak, not far from Sarajevo, or in Montenegro. In early February 2006, portions of a Serbian military intelligence report were leaked to the Serbian Newspaper Politika which stated that Mladi? had been hidden in Army of Republika Srpska and Yugoslav People's Army facilities up until 1 June 2002, when the National Assembly of Serbia passed a law mandating cooperation with the ICTY in The Hague. The then-Chief General of the Yugoslav Army Neboj?a Pavkovi? requested that Mladi? vacate the facility where he was staying on the mountain Povlen, near Valjevo, after which the Serb military agencies claim to have lost all trace of the fugitive.

Mladi? had gone into hiding after the arrest of Slobodan Milo?evi? in 2001, after having lived freely in Serbia.

In 2004, Paddy Ashdown, at the time the High Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina, removed the 58 officials from their post due to suspicions that they helped war crimes suspects including Ratko Mladi? and Radovan Karad?i? to evade capture. Some officials were subjected to travel bans and had their bank accounts frozen. The ban was later lifted after the capture of Mladi?.

In November 2004, British defense officials conceded that military action was unlikely to be successful in bringing Mladi? and other suspects to trial. One winter?s day British UN troops carrying side arms were confronted by the general skiing down the piste at Sarajevo?s former Olympic skiing resort but made no move for their guns; skiing behind Mladi? were four bodyguards. Despite his Hague warrant, they decided to carry on skiing. Later NATO had a rethink, sending commandos to arrest war crimes suspects, but Mladi? simply went underground. No amount of NATO action or UN demands, or even a $5�million bounty announced by Washington, could bring him in.

It was revealed in December 2004 that the Army of Republika Srpska had been harboring and protecting Ratko Mladi? until the summer of 2004, despite repeated and public pleas to collaborate with the ICTY and apprehend war criminals. On December 6, NATO said that Mladi? visited his wartime bunker during the summer in order to celebrate Army of Republika Srpska day.

In June 2005 The Times newspaper alleged that Mladi? had demanded $5�million (�2.75�million) "compensation" to be given to his family and bodyguards if he gave himself up to the ICTY in the Hague.

In 2006, a report by Serbian army intelligence showed that Mladi? used premises of the Serb army until mid 2002.

In January 2006, the Belgrade court indicted 10 people for aiding Mladi? in hiding from 2002 to January 2006. An investigation showed Mladi? spent his time in the New Belgrade area of the capital.

It was erroneously reported on 21 February 2006 that Mladi? had been arrested in the Serbian capital Belgrade and was being transferred via the northeast Bosnian city of Tuzla to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The arrest was denied by the Serbian government. The government did not deny rumors of a planned negotiated surrender between Mladi? and Serbian Special Forces. Romanian government and Serbian sources claimed on 22 February 2006 that Mladi? was arrested in Romania, near Drobeta-Turnu Severin, close to the Serbian border by a joint Romanian-British special operation carried out by troops of those respective countries. However, the ICTY Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte denied the rumors that Mladi? had been arrested, saying that they had "absolutely no basis whatsoever". She urged the Serbian government to find him without further delay, saying that Mladi? was in reach of the Serbian authorities and had been in Serbia since 1998. She said that failure to capture him would harm Serbia's bid to join the European Union (EU). The 1 May 2006 deadline established by Del Ponte for Serbia to hand over Mladi? passed, resulting in talks between Serbia and the EU being suspended. The EU considered Mladi?'s arrest, along with full cooperation with the ICTY, preconditions that had to be met before Serbia could join the organization.

In July 2008, Serbian officials voiced concern that Ratko Mladi? will order his bodyguards to kill him instead of being captured to face trial.

Conjecture of possible death

On 16 June 2010, the family of Ratko Mladi? filed a request to declare him dead citing that he was in poor health and has been absent for seven years. If the declaration had been approved Mladi?'s wife would have been able to collect a state pension and sell his property. The request was rejected by the Serbian authorities.

Opinion polls

According to the March 2009 poll of the NGO Strategic Marketing for the television station B92, 14.29% of Serbia's citizens would reveal information that would lead to his arrest in exchange for ?1�million, 20.57% do not have a determined attitude, and 65.14% would not divulge information for one million Euros (the poll was conducted when the United States embassy issued a reward of 1.3�million Euros for any information on Ratko Mladi?). However, it has been noted that the formulation of the question may have been a problem, as the polling samples which opted "No" included also those who would immediately report Mladi? without payment, believing that payment in this case is immoral. Although preceding reports indicated that 47% supported the extradition, it is now apparent that most of the population is against it.

According to a poll conducted by the National Committee for Cooperation with the ICTY, 78 percent of those polled would not report Mladi? to the authorities, 34 percent said they would approve of Mladi?'s arrest, while 40 percent believe he is a hero.

Videos of Mladi?

On 11 June 2009, a Bosnian television station aired videos of Ratko Mladi?, filmed over the past 10 years. The last video that was featured in the show "60 Minuta" showed Mladi? with two women, allegedly filmed in the winter of 2008. However, no evidence for this was given by television presenters. Serbia has stated that it was "impossible" for the videos to have been filmed in 2008. Rasim Ljaji?, Serbia's minister in charge of co-operation with the UN tribunal, confirmed that the footage was old and had already been handed over to the ICTY in March 2009.

He also said that "the last known footage was taken eight years ago. The last time Mladi? was in military premises was at the Krcmari army barracks near (the western Serbian town of) Valjevo on 1 June 2002." The previously unseen images show Mladi? in various restaurants and apartments and at what appears to be military barracks in Serbia, almost always accompanied by his wife Bosa and son Darko.

Arrest and trial

Ratko Mladi? was arrested on 26 May 2011 in Lazarevo, near Zrenjanin in the Banat region of the northern province of Vojvodina. His arrest was carried out by two dozen Serbian special police officers wearing black uniforms and masks, and sporting no insignia. The police were accompanied by Security Information Agency and War Crimes Prosecutor's Office agents. The officers entered the village in four jeeps in the early morning hours, while most residents were still asleep. They pulled up to four houses simultaneously, each owned by Mladi?'s relatives. Mladi? was about to venture into the yard for a walk after being awakened by pain, when four officers jumped over the fence and broke into the house just as he moved toward the door, grabbing Mladi?, forcing him to the floor, and demanding he identify himself. Mladi? identified himself correctly, and surrendered two pistols he had been carrying. He was then taken to Belgrade. Mladi? was arrested in the house of his cousin Branislav Mladi?, at the Ul. Vuka Karad?i?a 2. Branislav had been identified as a possible suspect at least two months before, and had been under surveillance right up to his arrest. After initial doubt as to the identity of the arrested man, Serbian President Boris Tadi? confirmed that it was Mladi? at press conference and announced that the process of extraditing him to the ICTY was underway. Mladi? had been using the pseudonym "Milorad Komadi?" while in hiding. Mladi? was not wearing a beard or any disguise. His appearance reportedly showed he had "aged considerably", and one of his arms was paralyzed due to a series of strokes.

Following his arrest, Mladi? appeared before the Belgrade Higher Court for a hearing on whether he was fit to be extradited to the Hague. Judge Milan Dilpari? suspended interrogation due to his poor health. Mladi?'s lawyer Milo? ?alji? said that his poor health prevented him from properly communicating. He was allegedly unable to confirm his personal data, but attempted to talk to the prosecutors on several occasions, especially to Deputy War Crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekari?. However, the court ruled that he was fit to be extradited on 27 May. According to the Serbian Health Ministry, a team of prison doctors described his health as stable following checkups. Mladi? was also visited in prison by Health Minister Zoran Stankovi?, a former friend.

Family

Mladi? married Bosiljka "Bosa" and they had two children; son Darko and daughter Ana. Ana died on 24 March 1994, aged 23, in an apparent suicide.

Mladi? became grandfather when his son Darko had a daughter, Anastasija, in 2001. A grandson, Stefan, was born in 2006, and was named after St. Stefan, the patron saint of the Serbs.

Daughter's suicide

There were conflicting reports in various Serbian publications regarding Ana's death and the discovery of her body. Some media said that her body was found in her blood-splattered bedroom, while others claim it was found in a nearby park or in the woods near the Top?ider cemetery. However, it was concluded that she had used her father's handgun, which he had been awarded at military school in his youth. There are also conflicting opinions on the cause of the decision to commit suicide. She may have read about the war atrocities attributed to her father in the newspapers.

Ratko himself said she had been killed by his enemies. Most people that knew Ratko personally, said that his daughter's death transformed him into "a bloodthirsty maniac". One of his former commanders told Newsweek magazine: "Some people think he went mad. Mladic?s life had two phases - before and after the death of Ana. He never recovered. He was a broken man." Upon his arrest, he was allowed to leave his cell and visit the grave of his daughter where he spent a few minutes.

Hugo Best

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Mladic trial: Prosecution to focus on Srebrenica massacre

Early life and military career

Role in the Yugoslav wars

Indictment by the ICTY

Conjecture of possible death

Opinion polls

Videos of Mladi?

Arrest and trial

Family

Daughter's suicide

See also

Notes

References

External links

No comments:

Post a Comment