Briefly Noted

Friday, 18 November, 2005

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IWPR

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Judge Mumba replaces judge Gyorgy Szenasi, who has resigned for health reasons. She has served two terms of office in The Hague and was appointed to the appeals chamber of the tribunal. She is one of the court’s most experienced judges, having presided over cases concerning rape and sexual enslavement in Foca and ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats in 1992 in Bosanski Samac, northeast Bosnia.

Mumba’s current term of office as a judge expires on November 17, 2005, which suggests a judgement in the case of Halilovic should be expected by that date.

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Hague prosecutors have filed a motion to join the cases against Vojislav Seselj, Milan Martic, Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic who are all charged, according to their indictments, with crimes related to a campaign for the forcible removal of large part of the non-Serb population – Muslims and Croats – from Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina “in order to make them part of a new Serb-dominated state”.

Seselj, the former head of Serbian Radical Party, faces 14 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of laws and customs of war. Milan Martic as former high-ranking official in the autonomous region of Krajina, is charged with 19 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war, while creating, training and directing his own police force.

Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic both face five counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war as senior Serbian state security service officials who were involved with training special armed units near Knin.

The prosecution made the announcement at the end of a status conference in the case of Seselj on May 30.

Seselj immediately objected to the prosecution motion, saying that he and the volunteers of the Serbian Radical Party “never had anything to do with the police, but only with the JNA” – referring to the former Yugoslav army. Seselj told the court he did not have “anything in common” with Martic and that he had “always been in conflict” with Stanisic and Simatovic.

In support of the motion for joinder, the prosecutor uses a number of arguments, including the concerning judicial resources. She argues that there are approximately 29 witnesses common to the cases of Martic, Stanisic and Simatovic, while there are 26 witnesses common to Stanisic, Simatovic and Seselj, and that there is one key former prominent political leader from the region who will be a relevant and lengthy witness for all the cases.

Therefore, she argues, in the interests of judicial economy, the tribunal’s resources would be used efficiently possible by hearing all the cases together.

The tribunal has been given until 2008 by the UN Security Council to complete its work in the main trials, and until 2010 to hear appeals.

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The pre-trial judge in the case of Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, two retired Croatian generals, who are charged with atrocities against Serbs during the 1995 war in Croatia, has urged the prosecutor to speed up preparations for the trial.

Judge Kevin Parker of Australia made the comments after discovering at a status conference that not much had changed in terms of agreements about undisputed facts and disclosure of documents since the last conference.

The former army generals face charges relating to crimes committed during and after Operation Storm – a military attack by Croatian forces on Serb-occupied towns and villages in the Knin Krajina region in 1995. Cermak and Markac are accused – either alone or with the others named on the indictment – of planning, ordering, committing and aiding and abetting the persecution of the Krajina Serbs. They deny all the charges.

Judges are expected to give their decision soon on a proposed amendment to the indictment to include the names of two high-ranking army officers and an unspecific number of unnamed Croatian government and security officials. They are also accused of being part of a joint criminal enterprise to cleanse ethnic Serbs from parts of Croatia, although they have not been indicted in person.

Prosecutors were ordered by the judges to clarify who exactly participated in the criminal enterprise. But defence lawyers have objected strongly to the amendment, saying it has made the issue more unclear.

The news that top government and military leaders could be held criminally responsible for Operation Storm – seen as an important military and police operation which liberated parts of Croatia – has caused shock and anger across the political and social spectrum in Zagreb.