Former Bosnian Serb General Found Guilty of Genocide
T H E H A G U E, Netherlands, Aug. 2 -- In its first conviction for the gravest crime on itsstatute, the U.N. war crimes tribunal at the Hague today found a Bosnian Serb general guilty of genocide.
In a landmark ruling on what has been described as one of the "darkest pages in human history," the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal today ruled that Radislav Krstic, 53, was guilty of genocide in the July 1995 massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
He was sentenced to 46 years in prison. The maximum sentence for genocide is life imprisonment.
It was Europe's first conviction of genocide since the Nuremberg trials in Germany conducted after the Holocaust.
A former Bosnian Serb general, Krstic had pleaded not guilty to six charges, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and violating the laws and customs of war.
He maintained that although he was aware of the killings, he was following orders from his immediate superior, General Ratko Mladic.
But in his ruling today, Judge Almiro Rodrigues said that although Krstic was following orders, he bore responsibility for the massacre. "You were there, General Krstic," said Judge Rodrigues. "You were guilty of the murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims."
Nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, mostly men and boys, were massacred between July 10 and 19, 1995.
Grisly Crime
The Srebrenica massacre occurred in the summer of 1995, fully two years after it was declared a U.N. "safe area."
In a grisly mass crime against Bosnian Muslims who had taken refuge in the eastern Bosnian town, Bosnian Serb troops laid siege to Srebrenica in July 1995, initially shelling the spa town then forcing an estimated 30,000 people, mostly women and children, to board buses and leave the territory.
The massacres — mostly of men and boys — are believed to have occurred during mid-July.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, 7,300 men and boys, the youngest only 13, were massacred when the Bosnian Serb army overran Srebrenica on July 11 1995. But relatives of the missing have estimated the death toll to be closer to 10,000.
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