Ratko Mladic Deserves Double Genocide Conviction: UN Prosecutor

Prosecutor Serge Brammertz told BIRN in an interview ahead of Ratko Mladic's trial verdict on Tuesday that he believes the crimes by Bosnian Serb forces committed in five Bosnian municipalities in 1992 represented the beginning of a genocide  in the country which culminated in Srebrenica in July 1995.

"It has always been the case theory of the Office of the Prosecutor that what happened in the municipalities prior to the genocide in Srebrenica was already the beginning of the genocide," Brammertz said.

He said the prosecution is arguing that "the genocide intent was already present when Mladic ordered massive ethnic cleansing and exterminations in the municipalities [in 1992]".

In the first-instance verdict in his trial 2017, Mladic was convicted of genocide in Srebrenica in 1995 but acquitted of the same crimes in the five other municipalities - Prijedor, Foca, Kotor Varos and Sanski Most - where the prosecution alleges that Bosnian Serb forces' campaign of persecution in 1992 escalated to such a degree that it demonstrated the intent to destroy Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats as a group.

The prosecution further alleges that not only did Mladic know that genocide was about to be or had been committed by his subordinates in 1992, but that he failed to take "necessary and reasonable" measures to prevent it or punish the perpetrators.

The 2017 verdict found that "murders were committed which constituted crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war" in the five municipalities in 1992. The judge, Alphons Orie, also said that there was "a plan to destroy" the Bosniak population.

But judge Orie said the targeted group represented a "relatively small number" of the total number of Bosniaks, and there was no...