The Hague trial of Ratko Mladić began today with the opening statement of the prosecutor, who announced that he will prove that the wartime commander of the RS Army was involved in all the crimes of the Serbian forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Prosecutor Dermot Groom, in his presentation at the beginning of Ratko Mladić's trial, stated that the common denominator of those crimes was the intention to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Croats from the areas to which the Serbs believed they had a right.
As examples, the prosecutor cited the murder of 150 Muslim men in the village of Večići, the massacre in Srebrenica, the shelling of Sarajevo's Markale market in 1995, when more than 30 people were killed and more than 70 were wounded.
"The prosecution will prove beyond any reasonable doubt the involvement of Mladic in each of these crimes," said the prosecutor.
Dermot Groom stated that in May 1992, the Bosnian Serb leadership began a carefully planned and coordinated attack on fellow citizens who were not Serbs and that in some locations the attack "reached the proportions of genocide, and the world watched in disbelief as settlements and villages in Europe".
Grum showed maps of BiH showing the demographic composition of the population before the war and the change in ethnic composition due to the actions of the VRS, and the borders of the new map were designed, according to his claim, by Karadžić and the then president of the RS Assembly, Momčilo Krajišnik
Referring to the political framework in which the crimes took place, the prosecutor said that Radovan Karadžić's SDS maintained close ties with Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, who believed that Serbs must resist any attempt to break up Yugoslavia in such a way that Serbs live in different states.
According to Grum's interpretation, the Serbs in Croatia were the first to declare autonomous regions and began the ethnic cleansing of the land they considered Serbian.
Grum showed maps of BiH showing the demographic composition of the population before the war and changes in the ethnic composition due to the actions of the VRS, and the borders of the new map were designed, according to his claim, by Karadžić and the then president of the RS Assembly, Momčilo Krajišnik.
Prosecutor Grum listed the individual crimes Mladic is accused of, including the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, shelling and sniper fire on the population, which he said had no military purpose, but only served to terrorize civilians.
The RS leader's plan to establish a new state of Bosnian Serbs consisted, according to him, of two key elements - territorial and demographic.
The leadership of the RS gave Mladić a mandate to achieve six strategic goals - state demarcation of the Serbian people from the other two peoples and change the national composition of the population in BiH; establishing a corridor between Semberija and Krajina; establishing a corridor in the Drina valley; establishment of borders on the Una and Neretva; dividing Sarajevo into two parts and providing RS access to the sea, said Grum.
According to him, Mladić was aware that these goals could not be achieved without persecution and relocation of non-Serbs to other territories, as evidenced by his statement that "people are not coins or keys, so they can be moved from pocket to pocket."
"The objectives were disclosed for the first time on May 12, 1992, and although the issue of their legality can still be discussed, the fact is that their realization involved numerous serious crimes," said the prosecutor.
According to Grum, the crimes were part of a plan to separate the Serbian population from the non-Serb population, to ethnically cleanse the territories under Serb control, and to connect the Serbian territories in Bosnia and Herzegovina with Serbia.
There is no doubt that Mladić "held Sarajevo in his fist all the time", personally controlled the shelling and decided who was allowed to enter and leave the city, said Grum.
The JNA enjoyed great confidence and people believed that it would adhere to the constitutional obligation to protect all nationalities in Yugoslavia, but there are documents that prove that, before it withdrew from Bosnia and Herzegovina in May 1992, together with the SDS, it armed 70.000 Serbian volunteers, he said.
Prosecutor Grum listed the individual crimes Mladic is accused of, including the 44-month siege of Sarajevo, shelling and sniper fire on the population, which he said had no military purpose, but only served to terrorize civilians.
Since a no-fly zone was imposed over Sarajevo, the VRS began using modified aerial bombs, with great destructive power and notorious for their inaccuracy.
In one video shown, Mladić can be heard talking about sniper fire on civilians as a recreational sport and says that whenever he goes past Sarajevo, he kills.
According to him, from the very beginning it was clear to everyone that the shelling of Sarajevo was a crime, and even Milosevic called that shelling bloody and criminal.
VRS soldiers in sniper nests above the city waited in silence with their finger on the trigger for someone to dare to run across the street, and the locals called the main street "sniper's alley" because of the many incidents, said Groom and announced that among the prosecution's witnesses will be a sniper, "who will say that he was ordered to shoot at everything that moves".
In one video shown, Mladić can be heard talking about sniper fire on civilians as a recreational sport and says that whenever he goes past Sarajevo, he kills.
The representative of the prosecution spoke about the inhumane conditions in the camps in Omarska, Trnopolje, Manjaca, Keraterm, Sušica, Batković, Vlasenica, Rasadnik, KP Dom, Kula and elsewhere, which, he said, were places of great suffering, beatings, torture, rape and killing.
Imprisoning people had, according to Grum, a double purpose - in addition to ethnic cleansing, prisoners were also used as hostages.
Speaking about the hostage crisis, prosecutor Groom said that from May 26 to June 19, 1995, the VRS took about 200 members of the UN peacekeeping forces as hostages, after NATO airstrikes on Bosnian Serb positions.
Mladić, in a conversation with General Rupert Smith, commander of the UNPROFOR forces, admitted that some peacekeepers were deployed to facilities that are potential targets of NATO attacks and directly threatened them with death, said Groom.
The prosecution's opening statement will be completed tomorrow, when prosecutor Peter McCloskey will speak.
Mladić's defense announced that at this stage of the proceedings they will not make an opening statement, and that the accused will not address the trial panel.
The prosecution has announced the production of 413 witnesses, and it is planned that the hearing of the first witnesses and the presentation of the prosecution's evidence will begin on May 29.
Presiding judge Alfons Ori announced today, at the beginning of the trial, that the court is considering postponing the presentation of evidence, which should begin on May 29, due to the prosecutors' mistake in delivering it to the defense on time.
Indictment
The indictment charges Mladić (70) with two counts of genocide, namely ethnic cleansing with the aim of violent and permanent removal of Bosnian Muslims and Croats from large parts of the territory of BiH in 1992, which in several municipalities reached the proportions of genocide, while the second count for genocide refers to the events in Srebrenica in July 1995.
Crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war are contained in the remaining nine counts of the indictment, namely persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, forced transfer, terrorizing and illegal attacks on civilians and hostage taking.
If found guilty, Mladić could be sentenced to life in prison.
After years of hiding, Mladić was arrested on May 26 last year in the village of Lazarevo near Zrenjanin.
Inappropriate communication between Mladić and the audience in the courtroom
The trial of Ratko Mladić, a year after his arrest and extradition to the Tribunal, began today with throwing from the gallery where the audience - mostly the families of the victims from Bosnia and Herzegovina - was sitting, but also with the reactions of Mladić himself. Foreign media reports that Judge Alfonso Ori therefore called on both sides not to "make eye contact" and to "stop inappropriate communication, whoever initiates it."
The Reuters agency reported that at one point Mladic made eye contact with one of the Muslim women in the audience and passed his hand over her throat, which then prompted Judge Ori to set a short break and call on those present to stop "inappropriate communication", but court spokeswoman Nerma Jelacich could not say what exactly happened.
When asked by Tanjug whether it is true that Mladić ran his finger across his throat, she replied: "I cannot confirm that. I can only confirm that there was communication between the accused and the people who were in the public gallery, but I cannot confirm what exactly happened."
By the way, the trial of Mladic is taking place in a crowded courtroom, which, in addition to the families of the victims, is followed by numerous press teams. The media reported that Mladic applauded the judges upon entering the courtroom, showing his thumbs up.
"Jutranji list" states that there were around thirty families of the victims in the courtroom, most of them women from Srebrenica who were constantly calmed down by the guards because they protested in low voices, commenting on the proceedings and arguing with Mladić through the bulletproof glass.
One of the mothers of the Srebrenica victims whispered "vulture" several times during the prosecutors' presentation, according to Reuters.
"For now, we will not take any action on the matter, but if something like this happens again, we will have to put something like a protective wall between Mr. Mladic and the gallery. Mr. Mladic, please refrain from such communication and focus on the words of the prosecutor," warned Ori.
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