The war crimes judgement in the case of Ratko Mladic will be delivered next month, UN judges said. The Bosnian Serb general faces war crimes and genocide charges stemming from the 1990s Balkans conflict.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Suki
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The long-awaited verdict in Ratko Mladic's years-long trial will be delivered on November 22, judges from the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced Wednesday.
Mladic faces 11 war crimes charges, including two of genocide, for an alleged campaign of ethnic cleansing in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, one of the conflicts in the Balkans that accompanied the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
He is also accused of being behind the siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, during which an estimated 10,000 people were killed in a relentless campaign of shelling and sniping. Mladic has denied the charges.
Mladic, long a symbol of impunity in the Balkans, was arrested in Serbia in 2011 after more than a decade on the run. He was taken into custody in The Hague to face a trial which spanned more than five years. The 74-year-old faces life imprisonment if found guilty.
"It would be... an insult to the victims, living and dead, and an affront to justice to impose any sentence other than the most severe available one: a life sentence," prosecutor Alan Tieger told the court during closing arguments in December 2016.
Mladic's defense lawyers called for him to be acquitted on all charges, saying prosecutors failed to prove his guilt. Defense lawyer Branko Lukic argued that Mladic "is not a monster, he was a soldier defending against a monster that was the Islamic war machine."
About 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million left homeless during the Bosnian war.
Last verdict for tribunal
The Mladic verdict will be the last one to be handed down by the ICTY, which is based at The Hague and is expected to close down on December 31.
The tribunal has convicted and sentenced a total of 83 suspects. Mladic's political counterpart during the war, Radovan Karadzic, 72, was found guilty of similar charges in March 2016 and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his prison cell in 2006 after suffering a heart attack a few months before the verdict in his trial was due.
Remembering the disappeared in Bosnia
People all over the world go missing every day, be it in war or for political reasons. Z.B. survived a massacre during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia. To this day, he is still searching for his family members.
Image: Armin Smailovic
Joint burials
Around 500 people gathered for a collective funeral at a stadium in Prijedor in July, before burying the remains of their family members in local cemeteries. This time, the bodies of 23 people had been identified. The youngest victim was 18 and the oldest 72. The remains of three people from the village of Zecovi were also buried.
Image: Armin Smailovic
Helping others
"More than 20 years have passed and I am still waiting to bury my mother, my brothers and my sister. The longer I wait to find them, the harder it becomes for me and my family. The waiting is killing us," said Z.B. The remains of his neighbor were found in the nearby city of Prijedor. Z.B. also helped at the burial.
Image: Armin Smailovic
Everybody wants reconciliation
Z.B.'s phone rings day and night. "I am responsible for organizing the ceremony. The less time I have to think, the easier it is for me," he said. This year, representatives from different ethnic groups will attend the burial. "This is a large step for this city. This is what life together is about; this is the reconciliation that we all want."
Image: Armin Smailovic
Remembering the lost
His youngest son, who is 7 years old, visited the exhibition "Guilty of Nothing" by the painter Mensur Beslagic of Bosnia-Herzegovinia. To the left is a portrait of Z.B.'s cousin, who was only 6 when she was murdered.
Image: Armin Smailovic
The only survivor
Z.B. was the only one to survive the Zecovi Massacre on July 25, 1992. He was 14 years old when Serbian forces killed 29 women and children. Among them were his mother, two brothers, a sister and other relatives. His Serbian neighbor hid him for eight days. Later, he went to Germany with his father and a brother but returned in 2000.
Image: Armin Smailovic
Pictures as a reminder
The picture to the left shows his mother and sisters and the one to the right, his brothers. They are all still considered to be missing. "I got the picture from a friend in the village. Otherwise, I have nothing. That's all that's left - just this picture and the memories."
Image: Armin Smailovic
Difficulties identifying the dead
The remains of the 2,325 people who were murdered in the region were found in 450 different places. Often, the bodies of those murdered are found several kilometers away from the place they lived. This makes cross-border cooperation necessary for identification and prosecution purposes. The remains and personal belongings are kept in a mortuary in Sanski Most.
Image: Armin Smailovic
Very little left
Governments have also gotten involved in the exhumation process. Until recently, family members of victims, like Z.B., searched in desperation for the missing persons and went digging on their own.
Image: Armin Smailovic
Disrupted childhood
"When I go for walks here, I recall my brutal childhood that was disrupted by violence," said Z.B. at a lake near Prijedor.
