Tribunal Considers Medak Pocket Referral

Wednesday, 9 November, 2005

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Alison Freebairn

The tribunal is considering its first formal request to transfer a middle-ranking case for trial in the country where the war crimes were alleged to have been committed – in this instance, Croatia.

The prosecutors announced earlier this summer that they would try to have the case of Croatian army commanders Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac, who are charged in connection with the Medak Pocket operation in which many Serb civilians were killed and the population driven from their homes, transferred to the region.

This was confirmed on September 7, when tribunal president Judge Theodor Meron announced the appointment of a new trial chamber to consider Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte’s request.

Judges Alfons Orie, O-Gon Kwon and Kevin Parker will now be responsible for hearing submissions and making a decision whether or not to refer the case to Zagreb.

Such referrals are an important part of the tribunal’s completion strategy. Earlier this year, the Security Council called on the tribunal and the Office of The Prosecutor, OTP, “to review the case load … in particular with a view to determining which cases should be proceeded with and which should be transferred to competent national jurisdictions”.

Under Rule 11 bis of the tribunal’s statute, a case can be referred to the authorities of a state in whose territory the crime was committed, in which the accused was arrested or has jurisdiction and is willing and prepared to accept it.

However, there was some confusion at the tribunal this week after the OTP asked to refer another middle-ranking case to a domestic war crimes chamber that is not yet operational.

It asked the tribunal to also consider transferring the case of Zeljko Meakic and others accused in connection with crimes committed at the Omarska and Keraterm camps to Bosnia’s fledgling war crimes court, a new body set up within the country’s state court.

Yet this war crimes court is not expected to open its doors until January 2005, and serious questions have been raised over its readiness. No trial chamber has yet been appointed to make a decision on the transferral of this case.

There should be no such obstacles in the case of Ademi and Norac, who were acting commander of the Croatian army’s Gospic Military District and commander of its Sixth Guards Brigade respectively, and are charged in connection with the murder and persecution of Serb civilians living within the Medak Pocket in late 1993.

They face charges of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war, including allegations of terrorising the predominately Serb population of the pocket by the mutilation and desecration of the body of one woman, and the public killing of another, Boja Vujnovic, alleged to have been burnt alive.

The indictment alleges that Ademi and Norac knew or had reason to know that these crimes were being committed, and failed to take measures to prevent them or to punish the perpetrators. They deny the charges.

The Medak Pocket was a small rural area of around five square kilometres within the self-proclaimed Republika Srpska Krajina, to the south of the Croatian city of Gospic. Before the September 1993 attack by Croatian forces, around 400 Serb civilians lived in the towns of Divoselo, Citluk and parts of Pocitel and numerous small settlements in the area.

The Croatian attack commenced with the shelling of the area on September 9, and the villages within the pocket were captured after two days of fighting. However, a week later, international negotiations secured a ceasefire agreement, signed by both Serb and Croat military leaders.

Under this agreement, which came into effect on September 15, the Croat forces withdrew from the area two days later, leaving it under the control of the United Nations Protection Force, UNPROFOR.

It was discovered that at least 29 local civilians - mostly women and the elderly - and five surrendered Serb soldiers had been killed during the Croatian army offensive, and that many others were seriously wounded.

According to the indictment, most of the buildings in the pocket - including 164 houses and 148 barns - were destroyed by fire and explosives, allegedly between the announcement of the ceasefire and the troops’ withdrawal two days later.

The indictment also alleges that the civilians’ property was plundered or destroyed, agricultural machinery rendered useless through sabotage, farm animals killed and wells polluted, rendering the area uninhabitable to the surviving Serb population.

Ademi and Norac are charged with both individual and superior criminal responsibility for these crimes.

Any proceedings involving Norac, who is currently serving a prison sentence in Croatia on an unrelated matter, are bound to be controversial as many Croats still view the 36-year-old former general as a hero.

Alison Freebairn is an IWPR editor in London.