Mladic is a soldier not a monster, lawyer tells court

THE HAGUE

Former Serb military commander Ratko Mladic was not a monster and should be acquitted of genocide and war crimes charges, his defence argued, insisting that the prosecution failed to prove his role in the Bosnian war.

Once dubbed “the Butcher of Bosnia”, Mladic, 74, has denied 11 charges, including two of genocide, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity arising out of the 1992-5 Bosnian conflict.

“Ratko Mladic is not a monster. He was a soldier fighting a monster that was the Islamic war machine,” his lawyer Branko Lukic told the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

The defence is spending three days presenting its closing arguments to end a trial which opened in May 2012.

His case is the last before the ICTY, which closes next year and a verdict is expected sometime before late November 2017.

Prosecutors urged judges to jail Mladic for life, accusing him of leading a campaign of ethnic cleansing to create a Greater Serbia in the 1990s’ Balkans wars.

“The time has come for General Mladic to be held accountable for those crimes against his victims and the communities he destroyed,” Alan Tieger told the tribunal.

His defence team shot back that Mladic was an innocent man who constantly sought a ceasefire and ordered that Muslims be protected.

“The prosecution attempted to pump Gen Mladic to superhuman proportions and abilities as if he was all-knowing and all-powerful,” Lukic said.

“It is our job to remind your honours, remind the prosecution and remind the public, not only watching today but future generations who will judge these proceedings as a part of history, that Ratko Mladic is a person, not a superhuman.”

He said the prosecution’s reasoning would see every soldier in every war found guilty, and urged the judges to find that the prosecution had failed to prove Mladic’s guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.

“He is guilty for the prosecution just because he is a Serb and tried to defend his country, first Yugoslavia, and then Republika Srpska, from attacks and wars that were started and pursued by others,” Lukic added.

Mladic is notably accused of being behind the punishing 44-month siege of Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which claimed an estimated 10,000 lives in a relentless campaign of shelling and sniping.

He is also charged with genocide for his role in the 1995 killing of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, Europe’s worst bloodshed since World War II.

Another defence lawyer Dragan Ivatic said the prosecution was trying to get the court to view the evidence through a peephole and had shown a lack of actual evidence, adding the prosecution’s “case is weak and impudent”.

“What is at stake here: the ability of Gen Mladic to go home, spend time with his loved ones and die surrounded by his family, and not in a concrete cage,” added Ivatic.