Mladic trial opens in The Hague
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E-mail Xinhua, May 17, 2012
The trial on former Bosnian Serb Army Commander Ratko Mladic opened Wednesday at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
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File photo of former Bosnian Serb Army Commander Ratko Mladic |
Mladic is charged with 11 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and violation of the laws or customs of war during the 1992 to 1995 conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. "We will show the hand of Mladic in each of his crimes," the prosecution Dermot Groome said.
The presentation of crimes such as murder, ethnic cleansing, rapes, and torture was escorted by stories of witnesses, videos, quotes of Mladic and his notebooks found during a search in his home in Belgrade. "This will be an important source of evidence," the prosecutor said.
Mladic was present in court on Wednesday and listened to the opening statement of the prosecution in a blue suit and with reading glasses on, making notes.
Almost one year after his capture, the 69-year-old Mladic looked more vivid than ever before in the past year on his first day of trial. He suffered from several health problems since his arrival in The Hague at the end of May 2011.
"He was brought here semi-dead and after that it got worse," his laywer Branko Lukic told Xinhua. "He almost died. Since October, it is improving, but still he is a sick man, especially psychologically."
Even the victims call the amelioration of the health situation of Mladic a good development.
"Some Mothers of Srebrenica said it seems like he has been on vacation," Axel Hagedorn, representative of nearly 6000 relatives of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, declared to Xinhua. "They are happy and hope that he survives and gets imprisonment for life."
When some relatives of victims were clamoring, Mladic started to applause, smile, wave with thumbs up and allegedly made a cut-throat gesture.
"I think he behaved perfectly in court, until somebody provoked him from the gallery. I heard some lady showed him a middle finger," Lukic said afterwards.
After the break, the judge ordered Mladic to stop making "inappropriate contact" with the people on the tribunal, otherwise a screen would be needed between public gallery and court to block his view.
On Thursday, the trial will continue with the remainder of the opening statement of the prosecutor, starting with the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica.
The presentation of evidence by the prosecution was due to start on May 29, but the prosecution failed to deliver key material about the first witnesses in time. This error was followed by a defense motion to adjournment.
The judges are now considering this request and will take a decision after the opening statement and after having heard a detailed explanation by the prosecution. The expected adjournment will probably not be the first in a long-lasting trial.
"We are here to fight for him," said lawyer Lukic. "You can count on a hard struggle."
The United Nations Security Council called on the tribunal to finish its work by Dec. 31, 2014, and transfer its remaining responsibilities to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals which will take over from the former Yugoslavia tribunal on July 1, 2013.
"Our strategy is not to reveal our cards until we have the right to do so," Lukic explained. "Until the prosecution finished their case. The end of prosecution case should be in two years, at least. The whole trial will take about four years. And after that you get appeals."
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