ZAGREB, March 20, 2019 – The final verdict against Radovan Karadžić cannot bring back to life the tens of thousands of victims or relieve the pain of their families but it must serve as a lasting warning about the fatal effects of the Great Serbia policy, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said on Wednesday.
Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadžić was sentenced earlier in the day to life imprisonment for genocide and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals increased Karadzic’s initial sentence of 40 years’ imprisonment to life.
“Today’s final verdict is a judgement against one of the main ideologists and executors of the Great Serbia policy, which did not refrain from genocide and other gravest types of international crime against Croats and Bosniaks, with the aim of creating a ‘Great Serbia’,” the president said in a press release.
“The verdict cannot bring back to life the tens of thousands of victims nor relieve the pain of their families and survivors, however, it must serve as a lasting warning about the fatality of that policy,” Grabar-Kitarović said.
The Croatian non-governmental organisation Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past on Wednesday welcomed the ruling by the Appeals Chamber of the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) sentencing Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadžić to life imprisonment.
“Our view is that the genocidal intent to annihilate Muslims and Croats existed throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, including in Sarajevo and the six municipalities mentioned in the indictment, the allegation which the Appeals Chamber did not uphold,” Documenta said in a statement.
It expressed concern about undermined trust in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “We are particularly concerned about the consequences of a recently adopted declaration at the eighth session of the Croatian National Assembly (in Bosnia and Herzegovina) which disputes the Tribunal’s judgment in the ‘Prlić and others’ case and the rejection of the Srebrenica War Crimes Commission’s report by the government and parliament of Republika Srpska,” Documenta said.
Representatives of associations bringing together victims of the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and families of people gone missing or killed in the war welcomed with a round of loud applause the verdict of the Appeals Chamber of the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) which on Wednesday sentenced wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić to life imprisonment, confirming his responsibility for the gravest war crimes, including genocide.
“Sometimes justice seems not to exist but in this case it has been served,” Bakira Hasečić, leader of the non-governmental organisation “Women War Victims”, who followed the announcement of the verdict from the court gallery, told Hina.
Hasečić and members of other associations, who arrived in The Hague from Bosnia and Herzegovina to attend the announcement of the verdict, said that they were satisfied that the court had delivered the harshest sentence.
“Everything went well, he got what he deserves,” said Jasmin Mešković, leader of an association of former prison camp inmates.
Mešković said that the verdict was good for legal practice as well as for the restoration of trust between people.
Fikret Grabovica, who leads an association of parents whose children were killed during the siege of Sarajevo, told Hina that he was satisfied with the verdict, notably because it was upheld in the part that refers to charges of genocide as well as a joint criminal enterprise in the case of Sarajevo’s siege.
“I represent the parents of 1,600 children killed in Sarajevo and to us it is important that the court has confirmed that he issued orders to terrorise and shell the city’s residents,” said Grabovica.
He said that he hoped the verdict would help adopt a law that would punish the denial of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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