With or without Genocidal Intention in Seven Municipalities

On the other hand, Karadzic’s Defence said that the first instance Chamber rendered a correct decision that no evidence was presented that Serb forces under Karadzic’s command committed genocide against the non-Serb population in those municipalities in 1992.
After prosecutors had completed the presentation of Prosecution’s evidence, on June 28 last year the Trial Chamber of the Hague Tribunal acquitted Karadzic of the charges that he committed genocide against Muslims and Croats in the Bratunac, Foca, Kljuc, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Vlasenica and Zvornik municipalities.According to the decision, prosecutors failed to prove that crimes committed by Serb forces in those municipalities, including persecution and extermination, were committed with “an intention of genocide to totally or partially destroy” Muslims and Croats, “as ethnic groups”.
During a discussion about their appeal against the mentioned decision the Prosecutors said that it was wrong and that they had presented sufficient evidence about grave crimes in those municipalities and the allegations that those crimes resulted from Karadzic’s “intention of genocide”.Prosecutor Alan Tieger pointed out that it had been proved that Serb forces committed crimes that contained all elements of genocide, including mass murders, causing of severe physical injuries and mental suffering and creation of unbearable conditions for survival of an entire ethnic group or its parts, in the seven Bosnian municipalities in 1992.
Tieger reminded the Tribunal of the grave crimes committed in the Omarska and Keraterm detention camps and persecution of almost the entire Muslim population from Prijedor municipality. He said that “bodies of 5,000 Muslims were dumped into a shaft”, adding that Serb officials then “contemplated whether to grind or burn them”. As a result, the pre-war share of Muslims in the total population (42 percent) was reduced to one percent. The Prosecutor illustrated Karadzic’s “intention of genocide” by quoting his statement given before the Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 1991: “Do not think that you will not lead Bosnia and Herzegovina to hell and, perhaps, the Muslim people to disappearance, because the Muslim people cannot defend itself in case a war breaks out”.
While allowing that some of Karadzic’s statements could be understood as an expression of “an intention of genocide”, his legal counsellor Peter Robinson suggested that it was not important, because genocide did not happen in the field, in the seven municipalities, as determined by the Chamber sitting in Karadzic’s case. “There is no evidence that anybody acted on those statements,” Robinson said, pointing out that the Serb forces had “an opportunity and resources to destroy tens of thousands of non-Serbs, but they did not do it”. Reminding that a Prosecution expert determined that two percent of the Muslim population were killed during the Bosnian war, Robinson asked a question: “If Karadzic and Mladic had an intention of genocide, how come 98 percent of Muslims got out.” Robinson reminded the Tribunal neither the verdict pronounced by the International Court of Justice in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia nor the Tribunal’s past verdicts against Bosnian Serb officials, including Momcilo Krajisnik, who was sentenced in 2009 to 20 years in prison, determined that genocide was committed in other areas, except Srebrenica.
Indictee Karadzic said that, not only was he not guilty, but “nobody else was guilty of genocide, because genocide did not happen”. He said that the Prosecutors “cannot find an intention for genocide in thousands of my speeches, interviews and orders”. “Even if they could, no genocide happened in the field… There was no genocide anywhere. Crimes did happen, but the State persecuted and prohibited them,” Karadzic said, adding that, when it came to percentages, more Serbs were killed, 2.8 percent, than Muslims.
The remaining 10 counts allege that Karadzic is charged with genocide in Srebrenica, the persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terror against civilians in Sarajevo through long-lasting shelling and sniping and taking UNPROFOR members hostage. The Appellate Chamber of the Hague Tribunal will decide at a later stage whether to charge Karadzic with genocide in the seven municipalities again or not.