Delic Indictment Unsealed

Friday, 18 November, 2005

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IWPR ICTY

The unsealing of the war crimes indictment against former Bosnian army chief Rasim Delic has ended months of speculation that he would be called to The Hague to answer for crimes allegedly committed by foreign “mujahedin” fighters during the 1992-95 conflict.

A day before the prosecutors’ announcement on February 23, Delic told Bosnian television that he would travel to the UN court voluntarily the following week.

While denying responsibility for the war crimes, he said the publication of the indictment was “a kind of relief to end speculation and uncertainty”.

The news has caused quite a stir in Sarajevo. While three trials concerning Bosnian Muslim defendants are currently underway in The Hague, the Delic indictment is the first to prompt local politicians to voice concerns about the tribunal and its choice of indictees.

Sulejman Tihic, the Muslim member of Bosnia’s multi-ethnic presidency, accused the court of “giving in to pressure” this week and claimed that the tribunal “equalised responsibility between those who committed atrocities and ruined [Bosnia] and those who defended it”.

But the news was welcomed by Serbs in Republika Srpska, RS. “Crimes were committed on all three sides during the war,” said Igor Gajic, editor-in-chief of the Banja Luka weekly magazine Reporter.

“If top Serb and Croat generals are indicted, there is no reason why Muslim [commanders should not] share the same fate.”

The indictment charges Delic with murders, cruel treatment and rapes committed by the El Mujahed unit of foreign Islamic volunteers - also known as mujahedin - who fought Bosnian Serb and Croat forces in the area of Ozren and Vozuca in central Bosnia between 1993 and 1995.

These foreign fighters were notorious for their brutality, and allegedly abused and murdered their prisoners in particularly cruel ways.

The prosecutors claim that on July 24, 1995, one captured Serb soldier was decapitated in the mujahedin-run Kamenica camp near the town of Zavidovici, and “all other prisoners were forced to kiss the severed head, after which the head was placed on a hook of the wall in the room where the prisoners were held”.

The indictment also states that prisoners held in the Kamenica camp were tortured and beaten daily. “Some received electrical shocks and other suffered terrible pain through the use of high pressure air hoses that were attached to their legs,” the charges read.

Prosecutors also claim that three Serb women were raped in the camp, and allege that Delic was informed about all these crimes but failed to punish the perpetrators.

Delic is also charged with the June 8, 1993 massacre of 24 Bosnian Croats in the village of Maline, in the Travnik municipality, again allegedly committed by mujahedin.

Sarajevo-based journalists Emir Suljagic and Edina Sarac told IWPR that they have seen some particularly brutal video footage apparently shot by the mujahedin during the war, which depicts the torture and ritual beheading of captured Serbs in Vozuca in 1995.

They described the images as “absolutely shocking” and believe the prosecutors will use that tape in court as evidence against Delic.

But while the crimes described in his indictment are undoubtedly among the most horrific any Bosnian army officer has been charged with, observers in Bosnia still believe establishing Delic’s responsibility for them will not be that easy.

The heavily built 56-year-old general has a reputation as a professional military man. And he had other qualities that helped him move to the top – one of them, ironically, was his lack of political ambition.

Unlike his predecessor General Sefer Halilovic - who is also standing trial for war crimes at The Hague - military sources say Delic was obedient and did not question the decisions made by the Bosnian presidency on some crucial issues, including the presence of foreign fighters on the battlefield.

It has already become apparent from witness testimonies heard at the trial of wartime chief-of-staff Enver Hadzihasanovic and brigade commander Amir Kubura that these mujahedin caused major problems with their aggressive behaviour, among both Muslim civilians and soldiers.

But according to Sarac, a reporter for Sarajevo daily Avaz, Delic “could not really do anything to solve this problem, because there was no political consent...The mujahedin were always more a political than military issue”.

Delic’s lawyers will probably try to use the issue of political responsibility in his defence.

Even before he was appointed Bosnian army chief, Delic was one of the highest-ranking Muslim military officers and one of the very few who attended the command staff school.

Military sources close to the indictee say that he lacked the authority of a natural leader and when he became the army chief, many questioned his ability to turn disorganised and often disobedient groups of armed men into a proper army.

Yet, despite all the scepticism, Delic succeeded. Even his fiercest opponents agree that he made the Bosnian army look and act much more professionally.

Military analysts in Sarajevo describe him as a commander who “always played by the book”.

These claims seem to be supported by evidence emerging at the trial of Sefer Halilovic that Delic demanded a thorough investigation into the massacre of Croat civilians in the village of Grabovica and Uzdol in 1993, and ordered the military operation in Hercegovina to stop until the investigation was completed.

Given his military record, there are many in Sarajevo who believe Delic is not being treated fairly.

“This whole case seems to be rigged,” Safet Halilovic, president of the Party for Bosnia and Hercegovina, part of the ruling coalition, told a local newspaper.

Miro Lazovic, president of the opposition Social-Democratic Union, said, “ By indicting the commander of an army who conducted itself very professionally during the war, you equalise the guilt of the aggressor and its victim.”

Merdijana Sadovic is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.