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defendants-02-10-2016

Deaths Spotlight Hague Tribunals Ageing

Defendants
The death in custody of Bosnian Serb war criminal Zdravko Tolimir means that 12 defendants
at the UN war crimes court in The Hague have now died while on trial or waiting to serve
their sentences.
Erna Mackic BIRN Sarajevo

The UN Detention Unit in Scheveningen, The Hague. Photo: BIRN.

When Zdravko Tolimir, the former intelligence chief of the Bosnian Serb Armys Main
Headquarters, who was convicted of the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica, died in the
Hague Tribunals detention unit earlier this week at the age of 67, he highlighted an ongoing
problem for the UN court.

According to the tribunal, the average age of the current detainees is 63 - twice that of
European prisons and as they have got older, 12 of them have fallen ill and died before the
end of their trial or while waiting to serve their sentences.

Victims groups have said they feel cheated of justice if a convicted war criminal dies before
serving his entire sentence.

I can only say that it is a shame that many war criminals do not live to serve their time,
which they earned through their actions, Hatidza Mehmedovic, president of the Mothers of
Srebrenica association, said after Tolimirs death.
Like Tolimir, many of the ageing
defendants have had health problems -
cardiovascular diseases, problems with their
bones, high cholesterol or diabetes.

Former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko

Mladic is reported to have suffered two
strokes over the past few years, and many
victims fear that he will not live to face the
final verdict in his trial for genocide and
war crimes.

Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan

Zdravko Tolimir in court. Photo: ICTY. Karadzic meanwhile said last September
that he was worried by the number of grave
illnesses reported among Hague Tribunal prisoners, and asked the UN to investigate.

It is unusual for such a number of diseases to occur in such a small space, he told court
officials.

Karadzic requested an investigation into how detention affects prisoners' health based on
claims that 11 detainees suffered from malignant diseases since they went into custody in the
summer of 2008.

The detention system in The Hague is not designed for fragile people in their third age, he
argued although detainees do have access to a private hospital as well as a general
practitioner.

But releasing defendants for medical treatment in their own country poses a different set of
problems.

When Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, who is on trial for alleged for wartime
crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia, arrived in Belgrade in November 2014
after being given provisional release on
humanitarian grounds for health treatment,
he was welcomed as a hero by his
supporters.
Seselj went on to stage nationalist rallies
and use provocative rhetoric that angered
victims groups and neighbouring
countries.He also said he had no intention
of returning to The Hague for the verdict in
his trial.

In March last year, the Hague Tribunal

ordered him back into custody, saying that
the 61-year-old had eroded the essential
pre-conditions for provisional release. Vojislav Seselj burned the Croatian flag in
Belgrade last year. Photo: BETA.
Seselj ignored the tribunal, daring the Serbian government to send him back by force. Lets
see how [Serbian Prime Minister] Aleksandar Vucic and [President] Tomislav Nikolic will
arrest me now, he said defiantly.

There is still no indication of whether he will be back in The Hague in time for his verdict this
year, while his party is gearing up to contest the upcoming Serbian elections polls which
seems set to ensure that Seselj keeps getting headlines.
Last April, the tribunal also gave Croatian Serb wartime rebel leader Goran Hadzic temporary
release for cancer treatment, allowing him to travel to Serbia for treatment.

Hadzic, 57, was diagnosed with brain cancer. He is facing 14 counts of war crimes and crimes
against humanity over his alleged involvement in the forced removal and murder of thousands
of non-Serb civilians from Croatia between 1991 and 1993.

But his defence team said in a motion to the UN-backed war crimes court in June last year
that the trial cannot be completed during the time he has left to live.

Separating him from his family in the remaining days of his life on the basis of proceedings
that cannot reach a conclusion would violate basic human decency, it said.

The medical prognosis for how much longer Hadzic has to live was redacted from the motion.

The UN Detention Unit. Photo: BIRN

Among those who have died in the Hague Tribunals detention unit are former Serbian
president Slobodan Milosevic, who was standing trial for genocide and other crimes.

Milan Kovacevic, who was on trial for wartime crimes in Prijedor in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
and the president of the municipality of Vukovar, Slavko Dokmanovic, also died in the
tribunals custody.

Some defendants who had been convicted but were waiting to serve their sentences and had
been temporarily freed also died before they reached prison, including former Bosnian Serb
troops Drago Nikolic and Milan Gvero, who were sentenced to 35 and five years in prison
respectively for their roles in the Srebrenica massacres.

Meanwhile Momir Talic died while on temporary leave during his trial for wartime crimes in
the Krajina region, as did former Bosnian Army commander Rasim Delic, who was sentenced
to three years in prison for wartime crimes in Zavidovici in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Another former Bosnian Army fighter, Mehmed Alagic, died before his trial could finish, as
did former Bosnian Serb fighter Djordje Djokic, who was charged with wartime crimes in
Sarajevo.

A further two Hague Tribunal convicts died while serving their sentences: Mile Mrksic, was
sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes in Vukovar, died in jail in Portugal, while Milan
Babic serving 13 years for crimes in the self-styled Republic of Serbian Krajina, died in a
British prison.

Nine other indicted suspects also died or were murdered before they were even delivered to
the Hague Tribunal.

The most notorious of them was the Serbian warlord Zeljko Raznatovic, alias Arkan, who was
accused of leading his Tigers paramilitaries to commit some of the most brutal crimes of the
war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Arkan was shot dead in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel in Belgrade in 2000, leaving
all his alleged victims without the satisfaction of seeing him in the dock.

None of his Tigers was ever convicted of war crimes either.

Arkan was killed, and with him, the entire case went cold, Emir Musli, who saw Arkans
men abusing Bosniaks in his hometown of Bijeljina in 1992, told a BIRN investigation.