A show trial with a difference
David Blackburn 9:33am
It’s a sleepy morning in Westminster. Fleet Street is exercised by the arrival of
a new strain of e-coli in Britain and there’s also the promise of a sweltering day’s Test cricket at Lords. The Hague, by contrast, woke to the prospect of seeing Ratko Mladic, the
Butcher of Belgrade, arraigned before the international court. Mladic was in
hospital over night, getting treatment for his cancer. In view of Mladic’s ailing health, the chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, shortened the list of charges to ensure that the trial is shortened. In other words, those charges that might not easily stick are to be
dropped so that sentence can be passed quickly; the same expeditious ruse was used during the trial of Radovan Karadzic.
There are some who will be unnerved by the prosecutor’s move, which suggests that judgment has already been passed on Mladic and that this is no more than a pious show trial. Daniel Hannan and John Laughland list other objections here. But while I don’t think there is any doubt of Mladic’s guilt, the trial is still of symbolic importance to his victims. And it also has a bearing on the future of the Balkans and that region’s relationship with the European Union. Baroness Ashton, who was in Belgrade on the day of Mladic’s arrest (perhaps coincidentally), has today urged President Boris Tadic to use the trial as a means to forge rapprochement with Kosovo, which is likely to be a pre-condition of Serbia’s accession to the EU. This is a show trial with a difference.
Previous
Fergus Pickering
June 3rd, 2011 9:42am Report this commentOf course it's a pious show trial and of course the verdict is decided in advance. I don't suppose there will be any effort expended now or at any time to find out the war crimes committed by the other side. There weren't any of those, were they?
AndyinBrum
June 3rd, 2011 9:47am Report this commentHis trial will be fair & then I hope they hang the bastard, I'm against the death penalty as a rule, but massacres & slaughters like the one he carried out, I'm willing to make exceptions
Les
June 3rd, 2011 9:48am Report this commentYour picture appears to be the wrong way round or do the Serbian army salute with their left hand?
Mirtha Tidville
June 3rd, 2011 10:14am Report this commentThe great problem in Jurisprudence, has always been that people start at a verdict and then work it back to fit.Almost without exception the case then starts to unravel due to its lack of objectivity.
Seeing as how the inglorious EU is the prime mover in this, should we be at all suprised that the gerrymandering has already started?
Lonesome Dave
June 3rd, 2011 10:57am Report this commentOf course it's a show trial, for better or worse and at huge expense.
Referring to him as the "butcher of Belgrade" infers a reasonable presumption of guilt.
sinosimon
June 3rd, 2011 10:58am Report this comment@fergus....sorry to puncture your self righteous posturing. bosnian muslim generals Hadzihasanovic,Nihad Vlahovljak, Sead Karagićm and Haris Rajkić convicted. croatian officers Ante Gotovina, Ivan Čermak and Mladen Markač, mirko norac, tihomir Blaškić,convicted.
there are dozens more. the croatian courts have convicted more of their own army of crimes than any country in modern times.
still, it feels SO much better to vent your sad prejudices with no regard to any reality based concepts doesn't it?
if you know nothing, say nothing.
John Montague
June 3rd, 2011 12:09pm Report this commentThe boldness and genorosity required by Ashton should consist in allowing Serb-majority provinces of northern Kosovo to rejoin Serbia, then the whole thing could be wrapped up.
Why is this not on the EU's agenda? Because it would set a bad example for the Albanians of Slavic Macedonia.
TomTom
June 3rd, 2011 12:32pm Report this commentCourse it is a show trial just as Nuremberg was with Vyshinsky, Stalin's Chief Prosecutor working hard to keep Katyn off Stalin's charge sheet. Mladic is guilty because the verdict has been decided, the question is whether he will have a convenient heart attack before he can implicate too many Western politicians.......
Jez
June 3rd, 2011 12:41pm Report this commentJohn Montague.
The EU is against any notion of Independant Nation State.
So why would they with that logic let Serbians live with Serbians?
The EU has an agenda.
Jez
June 3rd, 2011 1:13pm Report this commentFrom the BBC News- strong arm of the internationalist Liberal Left;
Ex-Bosnian Serb army head Ratko Mladic has made his first appearance at The Hague war crimes tribunal, saying he will not enter a plea to the "monstrous" and "obnoxious" charges.
He is charged with atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including the massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.
Gen Mladic, who said he was "gravely ill", told the court he had been "defending my people and my country".
****Whooaaa!!! That's a guilty verdict in there! Bloody hell, he wants to defend his *people* and his *Country* (i'm surprised John Simpson didn't scramble over the perspex glass barrier and start laying into him!***
The tribunal indictment charges him with genocide, persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts, terror, deportation and hostage-taking.
Prosecutors say this was his part in a plot to achieve the "elimination or permanent removal" of Muslims from large parts of Bosnia in pursuit of a Greater Serbia.
***Like the Croats, Muslims etc were doing to Serbs**
As well as Srebrenica, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II, Gen Mladic is also charged over the 44-month siege of the capital Sarajevo from May 1992 in which 10,000 people died.
His lawyer and his family say he is too ill to stand trial but doctors have so far declared him fit to be in court.
***If he dies too soon could the court just prop his corpse up as though he wasn't? Justice has to be done..... especially when the verdict has already been decided?***
In his first hearing before the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Gen Mladic, 69, was asked if he could understand the proceedings and he confirmed that he could.
He gave his name and date of birth, although the date was different from the court records.
***Bastard. Another charge should be brought!***
Court-appointed Serbian lawyer Aleksandar Aleksic represented Gen Mladic at the hearing. Gen Mladic may choose a permanent counsel for the trial later, or opt to conduct his own defence.
Judge Alphons Orie said the purpose of the hearing was to list the charges against Gen Mladic and ask him for a plea.
Gen Mladic's rights were read out in court, but he said: "I am a gravely ill man and need more time to understand what was read out, so please be patient."
The judge then asked if Gen Mladic had read and understood the indictment against him.
Gen Mladic said he needed at least two months to read the three binders of documents that had been brought to him.
However, Mr Aleksic said he believed his client had understood the indictment.
Gen Mladic then told the judge: "I do not want a single letter or sentence of that indictment to be read out to me."
***Hmmm. A time saving excercise.... Charge the b*stard!**
However, the judge proceeded to read out an annotated version of the charges.
At some points, Gen Mladic shook his head.
***Calllous b*stard. 'Shaking his head?!**
John Simpson said the man in the dock was a ''shrunken'' and ''milder'' character
When asked to enter a plea, he said the charges were "monstrous" and he needed more than a month to respond.
***Good old Johnny Simpson***
If Gen Mladic does not enter a plea within 30 days, the judges will enter pleas of not guilty on his behalf.
After a brief recess, the hearing moved into private session so Gen Mladic could express concerns about his health.
Then as the hearing ended, Gen Mladic said: "I defended my people, my country... now I am defending myself. I just have to say that I want to live to see that I am a free man."
***Only a guilty b*stard would say such a thing!***
He added: "I don't want to be helped to walk as if I were some blind cripple. If I want help, I'll ask for it."
***He's even rejected people to help him walk becasue of his cancer?!.... Give him 5 extra years!!***
BBC world affairs editor John Simpson, in the courtroom, said Gen Mladic had looked over at him and given a mocking salute.
***Eh?! But John Simpson is really balanced and fair in his reporting? How could anyone want to mock the fat over opinionated, supercilious b*startd (my opinion only).***
At one point, one of the Srebrenica widows had caught Gen Mladic's eye and made a throat-cutting gesture, to which he smiled, adds our correspondent.
***The good old 'throat cutting gesture'.... great stuff. Neutral court.***
A new hearing was set for 4 July.
Relatives of some of the victims of the war gathered outside the courtroom awaiting Gen Mladic's arrival.
Munira Subasic, whose son and husband died in Srebrenica, told Reuters: "In 1995 I begged him to let my son go. He listened to me and promised to let him go. I trusted him at that moment.
"Sixteen years later, I am still searching for my son's bones."
***Why do i need to know this right now? We have a free and fair trial heven't we?***
Gen Mladic had earlier been examined by doctors in the medical facility of the detention unit at The Hague after arriving on Tuesday night.
***He WILL be delcared fit and healthy they predicted. (Ha Ha!)***
On Thursday, Mr Aleksic said of his client: "He has not had proper healthcare for years and his condition is not good."
***Again. What a bastard.***
Also on Thursday, Mr Saljic said Gen Mladic had been treated for cancer two years ago at a Belgrade hospital.
Mr Saljic has previously been quoted as saying by Serbian media that his client had suffered three strokes and two heart attacks, was too ill to be sent to The Hague and would not live to the end of a trial.
One lawyer representing victims, Axel Hageldoorn, told Associated Press there was concern that "he is too sick to follow the trial to its end and there will be no verdict".
Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack at The Hague in 2006, four years into his own genocide trial.
***Hmmm...***
You know what. I hate bullsh*t.
He's probably guilty, who'll ever know.
F*ck show trails. I thought they died when the Berlin Wall collapsed.
Mirtha Tidville
June 3rd, 2011 2:32pm Report this commentSo he threw a mock salute and sneered at John Simpson, which he found chiling........
Thanks Ratko. Many of us would love to have that opportunity
Publius
June 3rd, 2011 2:37pm Report this commentDaniel Hannan has it right on this.
Verity
June 3rd, 2011 4:20pm Report this comment"the arrival of new strain of e-coli" ...
Does that mean that swine flu has gone away?
Where would British journalists be without an impending epidemic? I wonder in whose interests all these "epidemics" that ever happen are. Someone, or some organisation, is behind it, that's for sure. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world, so it's deliberate.
bojimbo
June 3rd, 2011 7:36pm Report this commentOnce they are caught , they have this , that , and whatever wrong with them . Col. Gadaffi is next .
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