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Former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic enters the court room in The Hague, Netherlands Jerry Lampen via PA Images

War crime judges uphold life sentence for 'Butcher of Bosnia' Mladic

The UN tribunal in The Hague rejected Ratko Mladic’s appeal against his 2017 life sentence.

WAR CRIME JUDGES have upheld the genocide conviction of former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Europe’s worst act of bloodshed since World War II.

The UN tribunal in The Hague rejected Mladic’s appeal against his 2017 life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity over the 1992-5 Bosnian war.

Dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia”, the once burly general who is now in his late 70s sat impassively and listened to the judgement through headphones as it was read out by presiding judge Prisca Nyambe.

“The appeals chamber affirmed the sentence of life imprisonment imposed on Mr Mladic by the trial chamber,” the tribunal in The Hague said in a statement.

The verdict by five judges at the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals – which deals with cases from the now-closed Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal – is final and cannot be appealed any further.

Mothers of some of the 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys killed in cold blood when Bosnian Serb troops overran Srebrenica were outside the court where they have long campaigned for justice.

“Today is a historic day, not only for us mothers, but also for the whole Balkans, Europe and the world,” Munira Subasic, president of one of the “Mothers of Srebrenica” associations, told AFP outside court.

“He’s a monster who did not repent for what he has done, even after 26 years. Wherever their army came, wherever their boot stepped in, they committed genocide,” she added.

‘I have come to cry’

At the genocide memorial near Srebrenica, a giant screen broadcast witness testimony ahead of the verdict, near the lines of white headstones where the bodies of some 6,600 identified victims are laid to rest.

“Instead of rejoicing with grandchildren, I have come to cry here,” said Munevera Kabeljic, 69, resting on the graves of her husband and her sons aged 17 and 20, neither of whom were married.

Kabeljic hit out at members of the Serbian community in Bosnia who have denied that any massacre took place.

“What hurts is the most is that they deny genocide,” she added.

“They say it didn’t happen, but these tombstones prove it. They didn’t come to sleep here, they were killed.”

Mladic was the military face of a brutal trio led on the political side by ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.

Captured in 2011 after a decade on the run, Mladic was found guilty in 2017 of genocide for personally overseeing the massacre at the supposedly UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica.

Footage from the time showed him handing out sweets to children before they and the women of Srebrenica were taken away by bus, while the men of the town were marched into a forest and executed.

‘Target of NATO’

Mladic was also found guilty of orchestrating a wider campaign of “ethnic cleansing” to drive Muslims and Bosnians out of key areas to create a Greater Serbia as Yugoslavia tore itself apart after the fall of communism.

The war left around 100,000 people dead and 2.2 million displaced.

Mladic, who gives his age as 78 but it is 79 according to the court, insisted throughout the trial and appeal process that he was guilty of genocide or war crimes.

In one of a series of tirades to the court, he painted himself last August as a “target of the NATO alliance” and derided the court as a “child of western powers”.

His lawyers argued that he was far from the scene at the time of the actual killings in Srebrenica, and that he could not be held responsible for the crimes of his subordinates.

The appeal hearing was delayed repeatedly after Mladic needed surgery to remove a polyp, and then because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Access to the court today was also limited because of coronavirus measures.

© – AFP, 2021

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    Mute mickmc
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    May 22nd 2017, 1:31 PM

    And if they accepted the original proposal they’d be better off. Once again we have the union bosses leading their member on a merry dance to no where.

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    Mute Soccer T's
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:36 PM

    @mickmc: At least 87% of the union members voted. Compare this to the numbers of teachers who actually voted to give ASTI a “mandate” for industrial action! Usually around 35/40%

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    Mute Soccer T's
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:51 PM

    @Soccer T’s: Correction: I see that on the last Asti ballot it was 77% of members who voted which probably accounted for the very narrow margin of victory for more industrial action (only 52% in favour) Nice of them to actually turn up to vote this time compared to the vote in 2015 when only a handful of members actually voted, meaning the delusional militants got their way. This is our kids future they are destroying while they couldn’t even take the time to vote!!

    Interestingly the kids sitting the junior cert in a few weeks are the kids who should be sitting the new junior cert 3 years after it was supposed to be introduced!!

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/teachers-threaten-further-industrial-action-after-split-vote-1.2364660?mode=amp

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    Mute booby sandwiches
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    May 22nd 2017, 4:33 PM

    biggest climbdown in history PMSL

    Leo is going to sort these evil unions out #Leoforleader

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    Mute Adrian™
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    May 22nd 2017, 1:39 PM

    What are the terms they are agreeing to? And compared to what they were first offered? Bit more info wouldn’t go astray in the story.

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    Mute Keith Grant
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    May 22nd 2017, 1:29 PM

    Looks like all those weeks of strike were well worth it ay?? Ahahahah

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    Mute Keith Grant
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    May 22nd 2017, 1:28 PM

    Hahahahahah

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    Mute abcyz
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    May 22nd 2017, 1:39 PM

    The union & some drivers were on Liveline etc saying our OAPS & disabled shouldn’t be allowed free travel even tough it was and is widely used for hospital appointments etc. There wasn’t much challenge by media presenters during the strike about the unfair travel card demonisation stories even by drivers themselves on liveline.

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    Mute dead right
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:30 PM

    @abcyz: thats absolute b@llox your spouting no driver or union representative ever said the people you mentioned shouldn’t be allowed travel for free not once.

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    Mute Soccer T's
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:40 PM

    @abcyz: That’s total bull! They suggested that we should revisit the payments made by the government to the free travel scheme. It’s a fixed amount each year no matter how many actually use the service. They were making the point that a huge number of pensioners never even use the travel pass. With the new travel pass surely they can implement a system of “use or lose”. Why should the taxpayer pay for something that isn’t being used? If a pensioners travel pass is cancelled due to lack of use they should be allowed to reapply but simply making blind payments is ridiculous

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    Mute Soccer T's
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:41 PM

    @Soccer T’s: Or maybe we should just offer giving every adult children’s allowance just in case they have kids

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    Mute dead right
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:56 PM

    @abcyz: there wasnt much media challenge on the issue beacuse it was never said ah well you got 26 likes good try

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    Mute Stouts O Shea
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    May 22nd 2017, 5:25 PM

    @Soccer T’s: your day s of scewing the public are over

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    Mute Neal Ireland Hello.
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:04 PM

    Took their sweet time voting, didn’t they.

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    Mute Gerry Carroll
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:57 PM

    Poor mites – already paid more than 40% over the private companies drivers and greed drive them to look for more – diddums. The blatant bleating for ‘all stakeholders’ to get involved was embarrassing; for stakeholders read chequebooks. I’m far from a fan of Transport Minister Ross but in this instance he was right not to dip further into taxpayers’ pockets to transfer their money directly into already overpaid drivers rabid with greed. Looking for a pay rise from a company already trading at a loss? Three weeks on strike and they got a pay cut, redundancies, new rosters, picking litter from buses they never did before, reduced overtime – good work lads.

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    Mute Terry Cahill
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    May 22nd 2017, 1:59 PM

    Scared sitless ! So they were !

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    Mute Paul
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    May 22nd 2017, 1:48 PM

    Shocked they back it and by a high margin.

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    Mute P.J. Nolan
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:12 PM

    @Paul:
    Didn’t thing that would pass

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    Mute Gavin Redmond
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    May 22nd 2017, 2:17 PM

    And the unions saying there still may be a possibility of strike if the company change the agreement. So who is calling the shots.

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    Mute Paul
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    May 22nd 2017, 1:48 PM

    Shocked they back it and by a high margin.

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    Mute Gerry Carroll
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    May 22nd 2017, 4:39 PM

    Not sure it was the union leaving the charge on this – may have been the drivers driving (no pun intended) the union to enable their fanciful out of touch with reality demands

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    Mute Eric Djemba-Djemba
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    May 22nd 2017, 10:00 PM

    Let it rot and die so it can be privatised and ran properly by a company. Don’t know anybody from Wexford that chooses bus eireann over the Wexford bus service as they are miles apart in quality and reliability best thing to ever happen.

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    Mute Jimmy jones
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    May 22nd 2017, 4:35 PM

    What an overpaid clown Dermot o Leary is . He has made them all look very silly

    14
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