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http://www.sense-agency.com/ Sense Tribunal - vesti sr Sense Tribunal rss@www.sense-agency.com Sun, 19 May 2013 19:22:30 CEST Sun, 19 May 2013 19:22:30 CEST News http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15http://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=14490 The Trial Chamber, with Judge Christoph Fluegge from Germany presiding and judges Prisca Nyambe of Zambia, and Antoine Mindua, of Congo found with a majority of votes that Zdravko Tolimir was guilty of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, extermination, murder, persecution and forcible transfer of the population of Srebrenica and Zepa in July 1995. The Trial Chamber sentenced Tolimir to life imprisonment. In her dissenting opinion, Judge Nyambe said that the responsibility of the accused was not established beyond reasonable doubt. The majority ruled that Mladic’s former assistant for security and intelligence in the VRS Main Staff participated in two joint criminal enterprises and was responsible for crimes committed to implement them – killing thousands of able-bodied Muslim men after the fall of Srebrenica and Zepa and forcible transfer of the Muslim population from the eastern enclaves. In the view of the majority, the abuse of the detained men inflicted terrible bodily and mental suffering on the prisoners and constituted an act of genocide. Also, it was established that removing the Muslim civilian population from Zepa, demolishing their homes and mosques as well as killing three of the most distinguished persons in the enclave – Avdo Palic, Mehmed Hajric and Amir Imamovic – were carried out to make sure the Muslim community in the enclave would not reconstitute; this amounted to the crime of genocide. This is the Tribunal’s first judgment for crimes committed in July 1995 in the Zepa enclave. By applying the conservative method to calculate the minimum number of victims, the judges, Judge Nyambe dissenting, concluded that at least 4,970 Muslim men were killed in Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. Realistically, the majority concluded, the minimum number of killed men was closer to 6,000. Crimes committed within the two joint criminal enterprises were ‘massive in scale, severe in their intensity and devastating in their effect’. In deliberating on the judgment in this case, the Trial Chamber took into consideration the ‘extreme suffering of the approximately 35,000 women and children forcibly removed from the eastern enclaves and their inability to live a normal and constructive life to this day’. In determining the sentence, the majority primarily considered the gravity of crimes and contribution of the accused to the execution of thousands of men and boys as part of an organized operation aimed at annihilating the Muslim population from that part of BH. With respect to aggravating circumstances, the judgment stated the accused’s high rank and central position within the VRS Main Staff, his duty and failure to ensure the safety of thousands of prisoners, his deliberate and active involvement in two joint criminal enterprises and abuse of his position in an attempt to cover up the crimes by transferring the bodies. The only factor in mitigation was Tolimir’s ‘good behavior’ during the trial but it was given little weight in determining the sentence, the majority of the Trial Chamber concluded. About a dozen women from the Mothers of Srebrenica association followed the reading of Tolimir’s judgment from the public gallery. When the accused was found guilty of the crime of genocide, they breathed audible sighs of relief and applauded when the life sentence was imposed. ...NewsWed, 12 Dec 2012 00:00:00 CEThttp://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=14390 The judgment in the case against Zdravko Tolimir has been scheduled for 12 December 2012. The Trial Chamber consists of the presiding judge Christoph Fluegge from Germany, Prisca Nyamba from Zambia and Antoine Mindua from Kongo. Zdravko Tolimir is charged with genocide and other crimes committed in Srebrenica and Zepa in 1995. The trial of Mladic’s former assistant for security and intelligence in the VRS Main Staff ended less than three months ago. In the closing arguments delivered in late August 2012, the prosecution called for the maximum sentence - life - for the accused. Tolimir, who represented himself with the help of a legal advisor, asked for his acquittal. The prosecution took almost two years, and called 126 witnesses, to prove the allegation that Tolimir participated in a joint criminal enterprise whose goal was to achieve permanent elimination of Muslims from Srebrenica and Zepa. The enterprise resulted in the murder of over 7,000 men and forcible transfer of more than 25,000 women and children from the enclaves in eastern Bosnia. Tolimir on the other hand called only four witnesses in his defense and rested his case after just a month. The indictment against Zdravko Tolimir was confirmed and published in February 2005. Two years later, Tolimir was arrested and transferred to the Tribunal’s detention unit. Tolimir has spent five years and nine months in detention....NewsThu, 15 Nov 2012 00:00:00 CEThttp://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=13944At the end of his closing argument, Zdravko Tolimir asked the judges to acquit him, since the prosecution, as he said, had failed to prove any of the charges of genocide and other crimes in Srebrenica and Zepa in 1995 against him. ‘The prosecution has based its case on presumptions’, Tolimir said, and these presumptions are in turn based on the fact that when the crimes were committed, he, Tolimir, held a high-ranking post in the VRS as Mladic’s assistant for security and intelligence, and on the erroneous claim ‘which cannot be proven’ that in the summer of 1995, Mladic and Karadzic ordered him to kill all men of military age captured after the fall of Srebrenica. Again, Tolimir said there was no evidence that Mladic and Karadzic had ever issued such an order to him, stressing that ‘what did not happen cannot be proven, either on Earth or in Heaven, before earthly or heavenly courts’.In a brief rebuttal of the arguments put forward by the accused, the prosecutor challenged Tolimir’s claims that he had not been able to exercise control over his subordinate officers in the security and intelligence department, from the VRS Main Staff level down to the brigades, because he did not have the power to issue orders to them. As an expert officer Tolimir was obliged to supervise the compliance of his subordinates with the orders, regardless of who issued them, the prosecutor argued, quoting from the VRS service manual. In rebuttal, Tolimir again maintained he was not under any obligation to monitor the doings of his subordinate officers, many of whom have been convicted of the Srebrenica crimes either in The Hague or in Sarajevo. He claims he was unable to do it because he was in Zepa at the relevant times, at a forward command post, and could not get in touch with the Main Staff and his subordinate officers. At the end, Tolimir yet again took his leave of the parties by wishing ‘God’s blessing’ upon them and expressing his hope that the trial would be concluded ‘in line with God’s will and providence’. As he brought the hearing to a close, German judge Christoph Flügge, who is the presiding judge in the Chamber that includes judges Prisca Nyambe, of Zambia, and Antoine Mindua, of Congo, indicated that the judgment in the Tolimir case might be delivered by the end of this year. ...NewsThu, 23 Aug 2012 00:00:00 CESThttp://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=13950 ‘The prosecution’s argument is pure speculation’ and the accusations are ‘baseless and have no foundation in law’, Zdravko Tolimir said today in his response to the prosecution’s closing argument. Yesterday, the prosecution urged the judges to find Mladic’s former assistant guilty of genocide in Srebrenica and crimes against humanity in Zepa. The prosecution asked the Trial Chamber to render ‘the only possible’ sentence – life imprisonment. In his closing argument, Tolimir denied he was responsible for the crimes committed in Srebrenica and Zepa in July 1995, as alleged in the indictment. Tolimir denied he had anything to do with Karadzic’s Directive 7 issued in March 1995. The directive ordered the Drina Corps to ‘create an unbearable situation [for]further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica or Zepa’. As the accused insisted, Mladic’s Directive 7/1 that the VRS obeyed ‘makes no mention of this’. The VRS didn’t block convoys bringing in humanitarian aid and supplies for the UN troops in the eastern enclaves, the accused said. Tolimir claimed that the convoys were used to smuggle arms and that humanitarian aid was used as a cover for bringing in supplies for the BH Army. The UN Dutch Battalion in Srebrenica didn’t perform its basic task, which was to demilitarize the enclave, Tolimir said. The Dutch Battalion refused to heed the constant warnings of the VRS and allowed the enclave to serve as the BH Army’s military stronghold. As Tolimir argued, Operation Krivaja 95 as the VRS attack on the enclave was codenamed, wasn’t directed against the UN or civilians. The operation’s goal was to separate Srebrenica from Zepa in order to hinder the BH Army’s attacks from the protected zones. General Janvier’s decision to deny close air support to the Dutch forces in the enclave showed that neither the UN nor civilians were targeted by the VRS, Tolimir argued. After this decision, the Dutch Battalion soldiers issued the so-called ‘green order’ and established ‘blockade positions’ in order to ‘provoke’ the Bosnian Serb troops into firing on the UN which would trigger air strikes against the VRS positions. The civilians from Srebrenica and Zepa weren’t deported or forcibly transferred from the protected zones. The decision to ‘evacuate’ them was made at the ‘UN level’ at the request of UNPROFOR and the civilian population in the enclave, with the consent of the leadership in Sarajevo. The Sarajevo leadership ‘kept it secret’ in order to blame it on the Bosnian Serbs. As the hearing drew to a close, Tolimir addressed the issue of the ‘murder operation’ in which more than 7,000 men captured after the fall of Srebrenica were killed in just four days, as the prosecution alleges. During his defense case, Tolimir tried in vain to have Ratko Skrbic’s expert report admitted into evidence: Skrbic analyzed ‘the movements of the population’ and estimated that only 368 persons were ‘missing, killed or executed’ in Srebrenica. Yet today, Tolimir didn’t want to talk about figures. He explicitly denied he had anything to do with those murders, insisting that he hadn’t been at the execution sites. Tolimir also denied he knew anything about ‘any purported plan to kill prisoners of war’. According to Tolimir, he did not have the power to exercise command over the intelligence and security bodies and officers such as Ljubisa Beara, Vujadin Popovic, Drago Nikolic, Milorad Trbic or Momir Nikolic. All of them were tried and convicted for their part in the effort to organize the executions, either in The Hague or in Sarajevo. Nikolic pleaded guilty of the crimes before the Tribunal. Tomorrow Tolimir will have about 15 minutes to complete his closing argument. After that the parties will be able to present their arguments in rebuttal....NewsWed, 22 Aug 2012 00:00:00 CESThttp://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=13952 When he decided to side with Mladic, Tolimir lost his humanity and became the epitome of the expulsion of the people and the destruction in Srebrenica, prosecutor Peter McCloskey said at the end of the closing argument today. The prosecution sought life sentence for Mladic’s former close associate in the VRS Main Staff. Tolimir’s responsibility for the murder of Muslim captives after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995 is unquestionable and has been proven beyond reasonable doubt. In just four days, from 13 to 16 July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army and police executed over 7,000 men and youths captured after the fall of the enclave, the prosecution claimed. It is the prosecution case that the operation could not have been carried out without a military organization, discipline and chain of command. Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic ordered the crime and the VRS Main Staff, the Drina Corps command and several of the Corps brigades implemented it, the prosecution contends. As the prosecution claimed, the operation whose objective was to kill the captured Bosniaks was organized, implemented and overseen by the intelligence and security department of the VRS Main Staff, headed by Zdravko Tolimir. ‘Experience, effectiveness and ruthlessness’ of the security officers in the Main Staff, the Drina Corps and the Zvornik and Bratunac brigades were of key importance for the implementation of the execution. ‘Tolimir must be held responsible’ because he was headed that group, the prosecution argued. By virtue of his post, Tolimir has a duty to find out about the crimes and prevent them, to report the perpetrators and to investigate the crimes, prosecutor Kweku Vanderpuye insisted.And yet the accused deliberately decided not to do anything because he personally was a member of the joint criminal enterprise aimed at the permanent elimination of Muslims from the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves. According to the prosecution, Tolimir contributed significantly to the expulsion of tens of thousands of women and children; the goal was the same. The defense’s argument that the people left the enclaves voluntarily does not hold up, because there is ample evidence of a deliberate and planned campaign to create unbearable living conditions for the people in the enclaves that would force them to flee. Tolimir participated actively in that campaign. Rupert Elderkin, one of the prosecutors in this case, talked about Tolimir’s responsibility for the opportunistic killings of small groups of Muslims captured in the Srebrenica and Zepa area. Prosecutor Abeer Hassan spoke about the permanent consequences of the execution of more than 7,000 men – fathers, husbands and sons – in the Muslim community in Eastern Bosnia. The accused Zdravko Tolimir will present his closing argument tomorrow. The parties will then be given some time to present their arguments in rebuttal on Thursday....NewsTue, 21 Aug 2012 00:00:00 CESThttp://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=13777 The expert report of VRS colonel Ratko Skrbic entitled Movements of the Population in Srebrenica will not be admitted into evidence at the trial of Zdravko Tolimir, Mladic’s former assistant for intelligence and security in the VRS Main Staff. The Trial Chamber with the German judge Fluegge presiding reached the decision with a majority of votes. Judge Nyambe, of Zambia, presented her dissenting opinion and Congolese judge Mindua appended his separate opinion. According to Ratko Skrbic’s calculations, after the fall of Srebrenica there was a ‘deficit’ of 368 persons who went ‘missing, or were killed or executed’. Skrbic contended that this refutes the prosecution’s allegation about more than 7,000 victims. The prosecutor described Skrbic’s report as ‘partial, incompetent and an insult to the Srebrenica victims’ and asked the judges to reject it. Tolimir on the other hand argued that Skrbic did have the requisite qualifications and that he managed to ‘make his calculations without denying the crimes’. In their decision to reject Skrbic’s report, the judges remind the prosecution of its duty to prove the responsibility of the accused beyond reasonable doubt by calling evidence based on ‘the professional analyses of qualified experts’. To contest such evidence and cast doubt on the allegations against the accused, the defense case must have the same sound professional basis, the judges noted. In this case, both the author and his report lack the professional foundations, the judges concluded with the majority of votes. ‘Scarce sources of information’ and the ‘obviously partiality’ in their selection indicate that ‘a lay person could draft such a report using the data already in evidence’. Numerous methodological deficiencies and the witness’s lack of qualifications, combined with his obvious personal concern, have led the majority to conclude that his report, Movements of the Population in Srebrenica, lacked reliability and evidentiary value and could not be admitted into evidence. Judge Nyambe, of Zambia, presented a dissenting opinion. In Judge Nyambe’s opinion, Skrbic’s report was relevant and should be admitted into evidence. The defense expert has the requisite expertise to produce a report on the movement of the population because he was a high-ranking officer in the Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb army, where he gained the necessary ‘knowledge, skills, experience and qualifications in the domain of the movements of the population during the war’, Judge Nyambe noted. ...NewsFri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 CEThttp://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=13653 The final witness of Zdravko Tolimir’s defense, retired VRS officer Slavko Culic, was the last witness called at the trial of the former Mladic’s assistant for security and intelligence. Zdravko Tolimir is on trial for genocide and other crimes in Srebrenica and Zepa in 1995. The trial began in February 2010. The court heard 130 witnesses: 126 were called by the prosecution. Only four witnesses testified in the defense of the accused general. The last of Tolimir’s four witnesses, Slavko Culic, confirmed today that from late July to mid-October 1995 he met with General Tolimir ’10 to 15 times’ on the Western front in Krajina. Culic commanded one of the brigades of the VRS 1st Corps. The Main Staff had set up its Forward Command Post in his barracks. Culic said that the Main Staff moved to the Forward Command Post in late July 1995, when the Croatian Army and the BH Army launched their joint offensive on the VRS positions. Apparently, Tolimir called Culic in a bid to secure an alibi for the period from 1 August to 1 November 1995. The indictment alleges that at that time the Republika Srpska army and police dug up primary mass graves in the areas of responsibility of the Zvornik and Bratunac Brigades and transferred the bodies to other locations to cover up the executions of Bosniaks captured after the fall of Srebrenica. In the cross-examination, the prosecutor showed the witness some documents which state that Tolimir attended the session of the RS Assembly in Pale on 6 August 1995 and that he was present at the peace talks in Geneva on 26 and 27 August 1995 as a member of the RS delegation. The witness didn’t contest the accuracy of those facts, but he explained that he didn’t know that Tolimir took part in the RS Assembly session. As for Tolimir’s presence at the peace talks, he learned about it from the media. Culic also told the prosecutor that there was no special reason why he would have to know Tolimir’s whereabouts from late July to mid-October 1995, except for the 10 to 15 encounters he described in his testimony. The remaining housekeeping matters at the trial of Zdravko Tolimir will be discussed at a hearing scheduled for next Tuesday. Yesterday, the Trial Chamber indicated that the parties will deliver their closing arguments on 21 and 22 August 2012. ...NewsWed, 15 Feb 2012 00:00:00 CEThttp://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=13648 At the end of the testimony of retired VRS colonel Ratko Skrbic, Zdravko Tolimir’s defense expert, the prosecution objected to the admission into evidence of one of the two reports he wrote. According to the prosecution, the report Movements of the Population in Srebrenica was ‘partial, incompetent and an insult to the victims’ of the crimes in Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. Skrbic ‘calculated’ that after the fall of the enclave there was a ‘deficit’ of 368 persons who had ‘gone missing, or had been killed or executed’. According to Skrbic, the figure of more than 7,000 victims in Srebrenica was vastly exaggerated. The prosecutor contends that the defense expert lacks necessary qualifications that would enable him to produce a relevant demographic analysis of the movements of the population of Srebrenica. Prosecutor Kweku Vanderpuye recalled Skrbic’s words that an analysis of this kind requires ‘no particular knowledge or expertise. It is enough to put in some effort’. The prosecutor recalled that the expert opted for a methodology that was supposed to merely corroborate a position he had already taken vis-...NewsTue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 CEThttp://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=13629 Tolimir’s defense expert contested the prosecution’s claim about 7,000 Srebrenica victims. He did confirm he didn’t use most of the documents shown to him by the prosecutor as he was writing his expert reports, Movements of the Population in Srebrenica and Srebrenica and Zepa. In these reports, the witness claims that the number of victims in July 1995 ‘cannot be expressed in thousands, but in hundreds’. The prosecutor showed the witness some documents from the International Red Cross and other organizations which speak about the number of missing persons after the fall of Srebrenica, the forensic findings from the exhumations of mass graves and the number of victims identified using DNA analysis. Tolimir’s expert says that he didn’t use the materials because he, in line with his ‘chosen methodology’ followed only the ‘movements of Muslims before and after Operation Krivaja 95’, which was the code name of the VRS operation in Srebrenica. As the witness said, the figures for the missing persons and the exhumed and identified victims were therefore irrelevant for his ‘calculation’. The prosecutor then showed a series of intercepted conversations, VRS documents and witnesses’ testimonies which all speak about thousands of Bosniaks captured after the fall of the enclave. The defense expert was unaware of the intercepted conversation in which Ljubisa Beara, security chief in the VRS Main Staff, spoke about 3,500 prisoners, asking the Drina Corps commander to help him ‘distribute another 3,500 parcels’. The defense expert was likewise unaware of the testimony of a security officer from the East Bosnia Corps who said in his evidence in The Hague that Tolimir had ordered him to stop the preparations for the arrival of 1,000 to 1,300 prisoners who were supposed to be moved to the Batkovic camp. Although he knew that the commander of the VRS Zvornik Brigade Vinko Pandurevic set up the corridor ‘on his own initiative’ to let the 28th Division soldiers pass through to the BH Army controlled territory, Skrbic claimed he was unaware of Pandurevic’s combat report in which he protested against the fact that 3,000 prisoners had been brought into his zone of responsibility. As Tolimir’s expert witness and an investigator in Radivoj Miletic’s defense team Skrbic had access to all those documents, the prosecutor contended, but he never asked for them. Skrbic confirmed that it was true. The prosecutor asked the witness about his book entitled, Genocide against Truth. The book was published last year and its content was almost identical to his expert report. Skrbic said he was motivated to write a book because he had serious doubts that his colleagues and senior officers from the military were capable of ‘lining up and killing thousands of men’, and by the fact that only 200 of the thousands of bodies moved to Tuzla in 1998 could be linked with Srebrenica using DNA analysis. The prosecutor asked the witness if in the meantime he had learned that over 6,000 bodies had been exhumed from the mass graves and that 5,777 of the Srebrenica victims had been identified using DNA analysis. Skrbic said he heard some of this information, but didn’t use it in his reports. Zdravko Tolimir’s expert continues his evidence on Monday. ...NewsThu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 CEThttp://www.sense-agency.com//tribunal_(mksj).25.html?news_id=13624 The VRS attacks and ambushes set along the route taken by the BH Army 28th Division soldiers heading towards Tuzla through the woods were legitimate, said former VRS officer Ratko Skrbic, expert witness called by Zdravko Tolimir’s defense. About 3,000 fighters were killed as they tried to break through the VRS lines, Tolimir’s expert contends. In his reports, Movements of the Population in Srebrenica and Srebrenica and Zepa, Skrbic used only ‘non-Serb’ sources, as he said. The expert based his analysis of the events during the 28th Division’s breakthrough mostly on the stories told by the witnesses, survivors from the column who managed to reach the territory under the BH Army control. Today Tolimir showed video recordings of some of their statements. Skrbic confirmed that this was how he reached the figure of ‘two to three thousand soldiers killed in combat during the breakthrough’, and learned of the instances when those in the column killed each other or committed suicide. Although Skrbic final figure was approximately 3,000 men killed in combat, he did note that ‘it is very difficult to conclude how many people from the column were killed and how many of them had been executed’ because ‘there simply are no data about it at all’. At the end of the examination-in chief Tolimir showed his expert a book by Philip Corwin, Massacre in Srebrenica, Evidence, Context, Politics, in which the author, former head of the civil affairs in the UNPROFOR headquarters in Sarajevo, argues in favor of ‘a more balanced approach to presenting what really happened in Srebrenica and BH as a whole’. Skrbic didn’t use the book in his analysis but attended the book launch in Belgrade last year. Skrbic thinks that the author’s views corroborate his report and confirm the accuracy of his methodology. Tolimir revisited the mathematical aspect of the witness’s expert report quoting Jonathan Rupert, former BBC reporter, who wrote in an article that the number of 8,000 persons missing persons after the fall of Srebrenica ‘was always equated with the number of those who were killed’. As these two figures cannot be the same, the British reporter concludes that ‘something obviously is wrong with the maths’. Skrbic believes that Rupert in effect corroborated his calculations and the conclusion that there were hundreds, rather than thousands of victims in Srebrenica. Finally, based on the correspondence between the BH General Staff, the Presidency and the commander of the 285th Brigade, Avdo Palic, the witness claims that the Zepa Brigade was ready to surrender in order to ensure that its soldiers would be exchanged according to the “all-for-all” principle, in line with the agreement of 24 July 1995. However, commander Palic didn’t have President Izetbegovic’s permission to proceed. The BH president wanted the people to be evacuated from Zepa while the soldiers continued to fight the VRS until the Zepa Brigade could link up with the 2nd Corps. The BH military and political leadership organized the exodus from the enclave with the knowledge and support of UNPROFOR. As the hearing drew to a close, the prosecutor started cross-examining Tolimir’s expert witness. Tolimir, Mladic’s assistant for security and intelligence, is charged with genocide and other crimes in Srebrenica and Zepa in 1995. ...NewsWed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 CET