By Ted Belman
I have been reading the Summary of the Judgement of the ICC on the charge of Genocide.
The Court will therefore examine the facts of the case on the basis that genocide may be found to have been committed if an intent to destroy the Bosnian Muslims, as a group, in whole or in part, can be established.
The Court further specifies that for the purposes of Article II, first, the intent must be to destroy at least a substantial part of the particular group. That is demanded by the very nature of the crime of genocide: since the object and purpose of the Convention as a whole is to prevent the intentional destruction of groups, the part targeted must be significant enough to have an impact on the group as a whole. Second, the Court observes that it is widely accepted that genocide may be found to have been committed where the intent is to destroy the group within a geographically limited area.
So the Court determined that the intent to destroy a substantial part of the group is required and for this purpose the “group” can be limited to a certain area. Thus the Court had to decide if Serbia intended to destroy Kosovo Muslims by killing part of the group at Srebrenica.
As for the standard of proof required,
The Court has long recognized that claims against a State involving charges of exceptional gravity must be proved by evidence that is fully conclusive. It requires that it be fully convinced that allegations made in the proceedings, that the crime of genocide or the other acts enumerated in Article III have been committed, have been clearly established. The same standard applies to the proof of attribution for such acts.
The Court examines the evidence of killings of members of the protected group (Article II (a) of the Genocide Convention) in the principal areas of Bosnia: Sarajevo, Drina River Valley, Prijedor, Banja Luka and BrÄko – and in the various detention camps.
It finds that it is established by overwhelming evidence that massive killings in specific areas and detention camps throughout the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina were perpetrated during the conflict. Furthermore, the evidence presented shows that the victims were in large majority members of the protected group, which suggests that they may have been systematically targeted by the killings.
The Court is however not convinced, on the basis of the evidence before it, that it has been conclusively established that the massive killings of members of the protected group were committed with the specific intent (dolus specialis) on the part of the perpetrators to destroy, in whole or in part, the group as such. The killings outlined above may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, but the Court has no jurisdiction to determine whether this is so.
The massacre at Srebrenica
Having recapitulated the events surrounding the takeover of Srebrenica, the Court observes that the Trial Chambers in the Krstić and Blagojević cases both found that Bosnian Serb forces killed over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men following the takeover of the “safe area†in July 1995. Accordingly they found that the actus reus of killings in Article II (a) of the Convention was satisfied. Both also found that actions of Bosnian Serb forces also satisfied the actus reus of causing serious bodily or mental harm, as defined in Article II (b) of the Convention – both to those who where about to be executed, and to the others who were separated from them in respect of their forced displacement and the loss suffered by survivors among them. The Court is thus fully persuaded that both killings within the terms of Article II (a) of the Convention, and acts causing serious bodily or mental harm within the terms of Article II (b) thereof occurred during the Srebrenica massacre.The Court goes on to examine whether there was specific intent (dolus specialis) on the part of the perpetrators. Its conclusion, fortified by the Judgments of the ICTY Trial Chambers in the Krstić and Blagojević cases, is that the necessary intent was not established until after the change in the military objective (from “reducing the enclave to the urban area†to taking over Srebrenica town and the enclave as a whole) and after the takeover of Srebrenica, on about 12 or 13 July. This may be significant for the application of the obligations of the Respondent under the Convention. The Court has no reason to depart from the Tribunal’s determination that the necessary specific intent (dolus specialis) was established and that it was not established until that time.
The Court turns to the findings in the Krstić case, in which the Appeals Chamber endorsed the findings of the Trial Chamber in the following terms:
“In this case, having identified the protected group as the national group of Bosnian Muslims, the Trial Chamber concluded that the part the VRS Main Staff and Radislav Krstić targeted was the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica, or the Bosnian Muslims of Eastern Bosnia. This conclusion comports with the guidelines outlined above. The size of the Bosnian Muslim population in Srebrenica prior to its capture by the VRS forces in 1995 amounted to approximately forty thousand people. This represented not only the Muslim inhabitants of the Srebrenica municipality but also many Muslim refugees from the surrounding region. Although this population constituted only a small percentage of the overall Muslim population of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time, the importance of the Muslim community of Srebrenica is not captured solely by its size.â€
The Court sees no reason to disagree with the concordant findings of the Trial Chamber and the Appeals Chamber.
The Court concludes that the acts committed at Srebrenica falling within Article II (a) and (b) of the Convention were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part the group of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina as such; and accordingly that these were acts of genocide, committed by members of the VRS in and around Srebrenica from about 13 July 1995.
Apparently the court relied on the findings of the Trial Chamber as to the the killings and whether they were a substantial part of the group. This I believe is very much in question to many.
Boyle is a joke.
It is still amazing to me, that he can continue to troll with the blatantly false, bias information, clearly in favour of Islamofascist ideology.
It is thus not suprising to see one, ”advising” Alija Izetbegovic and his Mujahedeen war mongoring Jihadists, as well as being a ”legal adviser” to Palestine ”Liberation” Organisation – some more war mongoring invading Jihadists.
By the way, Boyle is also petitioning the UN to set up an “International Criminal Tribunal Against the Bush Administration” You don’t have to be a Bush fan to see this as pretty extreme by anyone’s imagination!
Melana
By the way, Boyle is also petitioning the UN to set up an International Criminal Tribunal (ala Yugoslavia) Against the Bush Presidency !
Regardless of whether or not one is a Bush fan, this is pretty extreme, and anti-American, by anyone’s yardstick.
Melana
Nathan and Bokababe
You both amaze me with your knowledge. Thank you.
There is much to be said about who led the charge in filing this Bosnian lawsuit against Serbia, to begin with.
The person who put together the lawsuit is a Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, named Frances Boyle. Although Wiki isn’t the most authoritative source, it is useful for a barebones description of Boyle’s activities:
Nice crossover between representing the Palestinians and representing the Bosnian Muslims — and who says there is no linkage between these groups?
Ted,
that guy Drazen Erdemovic whom was mentioned in that ICTY report extract you posted in comment #4 was an ethnic Croat who just happened to be part of an 8 man mercenary squad (comprised of Muslims,Croats,Serbs)who served in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) as mercenaries on behalf of French Intelligence.
These 7 other mercenaries, who according to Erdemovic’s story allegedly took part in the killings of anywhere between 200 and 1,200 Srebrenica Muslims weren’t even indicted by the ICTY and remain free to this day!
Let’s assume Erdemovic is telling the truth (even if they can’t find the 1,200 bodies showing signs of execution to prove it). Why is it that the ICTY Hague “tribunal” never issued an indictment for any of them? Not even one? Why are they all free to this day?
So according to Erdemovic’s “testimony”, he and his mercenary colleagues allegedly killed between 200 and 300 Muslims (the OTP – Office of the Prosecutor – claims up to 1,200) but then he was never indicted by the ICTY, the OTP never even claimed there were any massacres in the specific areas Erdemovic said there were prior to his arrest by the Serbian police, and none of his mercenary colleagues gets indicted by the ICTY for any crimes – real or imagined.
Can someone smell a rat here?
Erdemovic himself was never committed to stand “trial” at The Hague ICTY where his claims would be suject to critical scrutiny: the rigours of cross-examination (the excuse given by the ICTY was that he was mentally unfit to stand trial because of a psychological disorder – but not so mentally unfit to prevent him from being a witness for the OTP and giving “evidence” on behalf of the OTP against Krstic,Karadzic,Mladic and Milosevic!).
Erdemovic was released after serving only a little over 4 years (originally a 10 year sentence halved by the ICTY to 5 years via “plea bargaining” after he turned OTP witness against Karadzic,Mladic & Milosevic).
Originally, there was no ICTY indictment issued against Erdemovic: he was initially arrested by the Serbian police in 1996 after publicly boasting he had participated “in a massacre” in Bosnia following a drunken brawl in Serbia in which he ended up suffering gunshot wounds – allegedly perpetrated by someone whom he never pressed charges against for shooting him.
He later pleaded with the Serbian police to be voluntarily sent to The Hague ICTY because he was not even a Yugoslav-Serbian citizen, but a Croatian citizen instead.
So, to recap: the Yugoslav-Serbian authorities arrested Erdemovic initially because of his public statements that he participated in a massacre in Bosnia and wanted to try him in Serbia for his alleged crimes, but then later agreed to voluntarily hand him over to The Hague ICTY to be put on “trial” (which of course never really happened – he turned “witness” for the OTP – Office of The Prosecutor- and was granted a plea bargain reduced sentence of 5 years. To top it all off, none of his testimony was ever subject to rigorous cross examination).
This all happened in 1995-1996 when Milosevic was president of Serbia.
During Milosevic’s “trial” at the ICTY, Milosevic said he would prove that Erdemovic and his seven mercenary colleagues were working under the instructions and command of French Intelligence and not under the command of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) during the month of July, 1995 when the Bosnian Serb Army recaptured Srebrenica.
The fact that none of Erdemovic’s colleagues were ever indicted by the ICTY – including Erdemovic himself who was arrested by Serbian authorities and voluntarily handed over to the ICTY at his own insistence – strongly suggests that Milosevic was on the right track.
Erdemovic’s “testimony” at the ICTY contained numerous inconsistencies and implausible scenarios – some of which are listed below:
Please read the Conclusions of the Srebrenica Research Group which Ted has posted on Israpundit once before,
and Scandal in the Hague, Part I by George Pumphrey.
Although there is clearly evidence of executions but not how many, this does not amount to the crime of genocide. In a normal trial for murder it is extremely important to produce the body as evidence of death. How can you claim 8000 deaths because 8000 “went missing”. They only found 2000 bodies and “Although the Trial Chamber cannot dismiss the possibility that some of the exhumed bodies were killed in combat, it accepts that the majority of the victims were executed.” The Court doesn’t say why it accepts this. A majority might be 1200.
Yet the Defense and Foreign Affairs Special Analysis reported,
How can these things be reconciled?
But what is important is not whether it is 200 or 1200 victims or even whether it is a war crime or the crime of genocide, is the fact that the figure of 8000 was fabricated to warrant the intervention by NATO.
Melana, a.k.a. Bokababe,
Anyway you can, because to let it pass unanswered, concedes without even a whimper. That is shamefully weak and you strike me as a person of tougher mettle than that.
If you have the facts to make your case, make it to all who will listen to you and get them to care enough to take up your cause. Do not however stop there. Keep making your case to those who will not listen, for only through by unremittingly making your case do you have hope to open the doors, ears and minds of those you need to convince to at least take a good hard second look at the evidence that was once thought incontrovertible.
Good luck!
Ted,
The idea that “8,000 unarmed men & boys were executed at Srebrenica” had it’s political value at the time. If later, it would be discovered that the number was “800”, “80”, or even just “8 armed Muslim men killed while firing on Serbs”, it won’t matter — indeed it doesn’t matter even now. Serbs have no right to defend themselves, their land, their families because Serbs are a sub-human race and the world is better without them. This is why, pre-Srebrenica, Naser Oric could kill over a thousand Serb civilians in the most brutal ways while he was using the “Srebrenica Safe Zone” as a base of operations, and only got two years, “time served” as a sentence. Meanwhile, lower level Serbs are getting 20 & 30 year sentences for less people killed — because Serb deaths don’t matter — or worse, are considered a favor to humanity while Muslim lives are “precious”.
How do you fight that kind of thinking?
According to the evidence, there were deliberate executions
The Judgment in the Trial Chamber which was approved on appeal and followed by the ICC in its recent findings held
#
10.The Number of Men Executed by the Bosnian Serb Forces Following the Take -over of Srebrenica in July 1995
# It is impossible to determine with precision the number of Bosnian Muslim men killed by Bosnian Serb forces following the take-over of Srebrenica in July 1995 . During the course of the exhumations conducted by the OTP, the process of identifying the number of bodies was complicated by the fact that, in the course of being removed from primary gravesites to secondary gravesites, the corpses were broken up and body parts became intermingled. However, as already noted, experts were able to conservatively determine that the minimum number of bodies in the graves exhumed was 2028.165 Although the Trial Chamber cannot dismiss the possibility that some of the exhumed bodies were killed in combat, it accepts that the majority of the victims were executed. Eighteen additional graves linked with Srebrenica have been located but not yet exhumed. Based on preliminary examinations conducted by the OTP, all of these sites contain human remains and it is expected that the total number of bodies found and linked with Srebrenica will significantly increase as these sites are exhumed.166
# The number of people still listed as missing from Srebrenica in July 1995 provides further guidance as to the likely number of men executed. Professor Brunborg testified that, conservatively estimated, a minimum of 7,475 persons from Srebrenica are still listed as missing, based on the cross-referencing of ICRC lists and other sources and that it is likely that the vast majority of these missing people are deceased .167 In determining the number of people missing following the take-over of Srebrenica, checks were made to ensure that people who were listed as missing prior to July 1995 were excluded. In particular , steps were taken to exclude ABiH soldiers who were reported as killed, wounded , captured or missing in action prior to July 1995 to the extent that was possible . In over 180 cases, however, this could not be done with certainty due to a lack of adequate personal data about the missing persons.168
# Nonetheless, the evidence given by witnesses, as corroborated by the forensic and demographics evidence presented by the OTP, strongly suggests that well in excess of 7,000 people went missing following the take-over of Srebrenica. The correlation between the age and sex of the bodies exhumed from the Srebrenica graves and that of the missing persons support the proposition that the majority of missing people were, in fact, executed and buried in the mass graves.
# There are other indications on the Trial Record that Bosnian Serb forces executed thousands of Bosnian Muslim men following the take-over of Srebrenica. Estimates of the number of prisoners detained and killed at diverse locations throughout the Drina Corps zone of responsibility between 13 and 16 July 1995 will be considered in Part II B. There are also fragments of information from VRS communications about the possible magnitude of the executions. An intercepted conversation, at 1730 hours on 13 July 1995, indicates that about 6,000 men had been captured from the Bosnian Muslim column by that time.169 Consistent with this, around 14 July, Colonel Radislav Jankovic (from the VRS Main Staff), during a conversation with a Dutch Bat officer about the attempted breakthrough by the 28th Division, stated that the VRS had already taken 6,000 prisoners of war .170 Other intercepted VRS conversations reveal that, on 15 July 1995, midway through the executions, at least 3,000-4,000 Bosnian Muslim prisoners were being detained by the VRS.171 Further, on 18 July 1995, two unidentified Bosnian Serbs were heard in an intercepted conversation reflecting on the recent events in Eastern Bosnia, including matters relating to the Bosnian Muslim column.172 One participant said that of the 10,000 military aged men who were in Srebrenica , “4,000-5,000 have certainly kicked the bucketâ€. Mr. Butler pointed out that this number was too high to refer only to combat casualties and concluded that this figure must include the men who were executed in the zone of the Zvornik Brigade.173
# The Trial Chamber is satisfied that, in July 1995, following the take-over of Srebrenica, Bosnian Serb forces executed several thousand Bosnian Muslim men. The total number is likely to be within the range of 7,000 -8,000 men.
I note that contrary evidence was not referred to. Also to be “satisfied” that the “total number is “likely to be within the range of 7,000 -8,000 men.” does not meet the standard of proof set out, namely, to be “fully convinced” by “evidence that is fully conclusive.”
After noting that the 8000 figure was of people who “went missing” they then record “stated that the VRS had already taken 6,000 prisoners of war .170 Other intercepted VRS conversations reveal that, on 15 July 1995, midway through the executions, at least 3,000-4,000 Bosnian Muslim prisoners were being detained by the VRS.171 “
I haven’t evaluated what evidence there was that there was deliberate cold blooded “execution” of prisoners. If it did happen, even in limited numbers, it would have been a war crime, and that’s bad enough.
In a normal court of law, the evidence of “two unidentified Bosnian Serbs were heard in an intercepted conversation reflecting on the recent events in Eastern Bosnia, including matters relating to the Bosnian Muslim column.172 One participant said that of the 10,000 military aged men who were in Srebrenica , “4,000-5,000 have certainly kicked the bucketâ€.” would be inadmissable as it would be hearsay. Even if it was admitted as evidence that it was heard, it was not evidence of the truth.
Shlomo
Thanks for that valuable information.
One has to wonder how the Court was “fully convinced” by “by evidence that is fully conclusive”. In light of this infor how could the court come to this conclusion?
….interesting that they failed to mention that after the capture by the Bosnian Serbs (VRS) the population was 35,632 …….the population of Srebrenica was – according to the media + NATO/EU governments – approximately 40,000 people……
Add this figure of 35,632 to a minimum of 5,000 Izetbegovic Bosnian Islamist troops who had managed to escape – according to what the Izetbegovic government spokespeople themselves admitted – and you end up with 40,632 people……roughly the very same population of Srebrenica before its capture by the Bosnian Serb VRS!…….
But if we believe what the ICJ/ICTY + NATO/EU governments + media are trying to make us believe………. 35,632 Muslim “survivors” + 5,000 admitted by Izetbegovic’s people to have escaped + 8,000 Muslims supposedly massacred = 48,632 people!……
…..these ICJ/ICTY Hague idiots are not only biased towards Muslims as the perennial “victims of genocide”, they can’t even count?!…….
…….I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed that logic + common sense + the abilty to reason (and ability to do simple arithmetic) are totally thrown out the window when dealing with Western attitudes to Muslims ANYWHERE & EVERYWHERE as the perennial “victims of genocide”… “at the hands of Christians & Jews”………..
DO NOT THINK THAT THE ABOVE IDIOCY WILL BE SOMEHOW CONFINED ONLY TO SERBIA/YUGOSLAVIA……they are preparing to do the same to Israel in the not too distant future…..all they are waiting for is just the right set of circumstances….”an international crisis in the Middle East”……a suitable convenient pretext….with the Western NATO/EU governments sending their military forces as “peacekeepers” (flying under the UN flag) to occupy Israel… “in order to prevent an international crisis arising out of the Middle East conflict between Jews & Arabs leading to world war 3 …..and to prevent nuclear war in the region engulfing the planet….”