Twenty years after the crimes Mladic goes on trial

The courtroom gallery at the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia was packed with survivors of the Bosnian war, journalists and members of the general public who came to witness history: Ratko Mladic, the man once known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, in the dock, forced to answer for the worst crimes committed in Europe since World War Two.
By Lauren Comiteau in The Hague
Charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity—including genocide--Mladic clapped and gave a thumbs up sign to his audience when he walked into court. Wearing a dark blue suit and glasses and taking notes, the former military commander of the Bosnian Serbs listened intently as prosecutor Dermot Groome told judges he would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mladic had a hand in all of the crimes in the indictment—from the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia to the 44-month long siege of Sarajevo to the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica.
“By the time Mladic and his troops would murder thousands in Srebrenica...they were well-rehearsed in their craft of murder, proficient in the forcible removal of non-Serb civilians,” Groome said. “While Srebrenica was different in scale, it was not different in its intent. It was not different in its utter inhumanity.”
Non-verbal outrages
Prosecutors have the floor Thursday and Friday to make their opening statements. But even from the dock, Mladic showed signs of his old self. Provoked by a war survivor in the public gallery, he ran a threatening finger across his throat in response. Presiding Judge Alphons Orie said if such inappropriate contact continues, he’d curtain off the courtroom.
But there were dozens of other victims of the 1992-95 Bosnian war who travelled to The Hague to witness the start of Mladic’s trial. Zumra Sehomerovic is one of the so-called Mothers of Srebrenica. They are the survivors of some of the 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were killed during one week in July 1995, a crime for which Mladic is charged with genocide.
Sehomerovic said seeing the former general made her remember all the evil he inflicted on her family. “I expect justice to be done,” she said. “I want Mladic to live to hear his judgment and be convicted so the crimes don’t remain unpunished.”
Sniping for sport
Mladic is also charged with the siege of Sarajevo, what prosecutors call a campaign of terror that killed more than 10,000 people in the Bosnian capital. “He talks about personally sniping the people of Sarajevo as if it was a sport,” Groome said of Mladic, as he screened footage of bodies piled up on the streets and people running in terror from the Serb onslaught. “But for the people of Sarajevo, it wasn’t recreation. It was a persistent fog of terror.”
Justice delayed?
Prosecutors were expected to call their first witnesses at the end of the month, but judges said a recently discovered prosecution mistake in disclosing evidence could have serious implications for the defense and may delay the opening of the trial proper.
That was music to the ears of defense lawyer Branko Lukic, who has been seeking more time to prepare his case for months. “We are not ready for trial…. Two weeks ago, we were missing millions of pages [of documents],” he said. “I hope they will have more sense now and award us with some kind of logical postponement to the beginning of the trial.”
As for his client, who has always said he was simply defending his nation and that the court is biased against him, Lukic says he’s doing better. He says Mladic has survived three strokes and is regaining some of the 30 kilos he lost while on the run. “For a man in the state he is [in], a man in generally bad shape, he’s feeling pretty good.”