Former Bosnian Serb war commander, Ratko Mladic, convicted to life in prison by the international court’s first instance ruling for war crimes in Bosnia, could soon get a temporary leave from prison in The Hague so he could visit his daughter’s grave in Belgrade, Serbia.
According to the Belgrade-based Novosti daily, Mladic’s defence attorneys asked the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MITC) if he could come to Serbia by the end of March so he could mark the 25th anniversary of his daughter’s death which falls on March 24.
The Head of the Association of Witnesses and Victims of Genocide, Murat Tahirovic, told N1 he hopes that the Trial Chamber will not comply with Mladic's request.
“Of course the defence expects he be permitted to come. However, if we take into account the fact that the guarantee for his return to detention in The Hague comes from the same people who helped him escape prosecution, for years, then it is unlikely that he would be allowed to come to Belgrade,” Tahirovic told N1. “If he does come to Serbia, then we’ll never see him in the courtroom again.”
Mladic’s attorney Branko Lukic said they are hoping the Trial Chamber would meet their demands and give Mladic several days off.
“Mladic’s an old man with frail health, and it's logical that he would be allowed to visit the grave. There’s also no way he could escape because he’d be constantly monitored. Besides, he’s seriously ill and can’t miss his treatment,” Lukic told Novosti. “We expect that the Trial Chamber would be reasonable.”
Ratko Mladic, 76, received a life sentence in a first instance ruling at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on November 22 last year. Apart from the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, the former general was found guilty of a number of crimes against humanity committed between 1992 and 1995 – including the four-year-long siege of Sarajevo during which it’s citizens were terrorized with mortar and sniper fire, the ethnic cleansing of ethnic Bosniaks and Croats from Bosnian territory, as well taking UN soldiers hostage.
