Brammertz: Mladic's final verdict "He sees himself as an officer carrying out orders"

Brammertz: Mladic's final verdict "He sees himself as an officer carrying out orders"

"We confronted him with 167 witnesses - they were brave people."

The final verdict against Ratko Mladic, scheduled for Tuesday (June 8th), is especially important for the victims, says Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor for the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

In a conversation with the Munich Süddeutsche Zeitung, he described the siege of Sarajevo and the shelling of the city commanded by Mladic.

"One witness told the court how she was hit on the market, buying groceries. The bullet went through her hip and killed her child. For those parents as well as for many others, that was not the end," Brammertz said.

When asked whether he thinks that Mladic did it out of conviction or was a sadist who got his chance, the chief prosecutor pointed to the moment when the commander-in-chief of the RS Army distributed sweets to children in Srebrenica.

"He told the Muslims to surrender their weapons and that nothing would happen to them, only to order their executions shortly afterwards."

Brammertz added that Mladic sees himself as an "officer who fulfills orders" and that the rule "the end justifies the means" applied to him.

"He looked mockingly at the victims' families, threatening them with gestures and facial expressions. We confronted him with 167 witnesses - they were brave people. He never showed remorse or at least understanding for them."

Brammertz believes that one of the reasons for the big problems in the former Yugoslavia is that many nationalist politicians say after every such verdict: "It is a verdict against all of us."

Brammertz said that "there must be a stricter reaction of the international community" to the denial of the genocide in Srebrenica, which was done again these days by the Serbian member of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik.

"I find that absolutely unacceptable. It is an open falsification of history," Brammertz said.

He pointed out that historical revisionism has not diminished over the years. "He becomes more and more shameless if he is not resolutely opposed."

When asked by journalists whether hatred is growing again, Brammertz states that new generations are also being manipulated. He cites the example of the Republika Srpska, in which a new Expert Commission was established, which, on the basis of "falsified scientific knowledge, establishes a distorted picture of the wars in the Balkans."

That is why, as he says, "our verdicts and our archives are very important, as is our presentation of evidence according to strict and fair rules."

He points out that nine million documents have been collected in The Hague so far.

In an article entitled "Balkan Slaughterhouse", the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (KStA) brings the whole background of Mladic's arrest and writes, among other things: "When Karadzic was arrested, there was no trace of Mladic. It was not until May 26, 2011 that he became one of the world's most wanted criminals. After enormous pressure from the United States and Brussels, he was arrested on a property in northern Serbia. A court in Belgrade gave permission for his extradition to The Hague on May 27. When this information was released, thousands of people took to the streets in Belgrade to demonstrate against extradition of Mladic. They celebrated him as a national hero", writes this Cologne daily newspaper.

It is recalled that Mladic kept repeating that he was innocent, and that the trial was constantly interrupted due to his poor health. He was finally sentenced in the first instance in 2017 to life in prison.