The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic resumed yesterday with the opening statement of the former Yugoslav president.
Milosevic has been on trial in The Hague for over two years for allegedly masterminding the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Milosevic is charged with 10 counts of crimes against humanity including persecution, extermination, torture and inhumane acts during the war in Croatia which left more than 25,000 people dead.
He is also accused over the deportation of at least 170,000 Croats and other non-Serbs and the unlawful confinement of thousands in inhumane conditions.
The indictment names over 700 people who were killed from the Krajina region, eastern and western Slavonia and during the 1991 attack on Vukovar hospital.
After Serb forces took control of Vukovar in November 1991, they took 255 Croat and non-Serb patients from the hospital and allegedly "beat and tortured the victims for hours." Eventually all were shot and killed on a remote farm and buried in a mass grave.
Milosevic also faces 22 counts of war crimes related to the same atrocities.
Milosevic faces two counts of genocide and complicity in genocide, the gravest of war crimes, for the 1995 Serb massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim boys and men at Srebrenica and the detention of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats in camps in inhumane conditions.
He is further charged with 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including persecution, murder and torture.
The Geneva Convention defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
The genocide charge specifically lists "the widespread killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims during and after the take-over of territories," specifically naming the 1995 massacre of Srebrenica.
Milosevic is also cited for the killing of thousands of non-Serbs in detention camps, such as the infamous Omarska and Keraterm camps in northwestern Bosnia.
The indictment lists over 9,000 dead and states that the former president participated in a "joint criminal enterprise," the purpose of which was the "forcible and permanent removal of the majority of non-Serbs" from certain areas in Bosnia.
In all more than 200,000 people were killed during the Bosnian war.
Milosevic, together with four of his allies in a "joint criminal enterprise," is accused of having "planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in a deliberate and widespread or systematic campaign of terror and violence directed at Kosovo Albanian civilians."
There are four charges of crimes against humanity and one of war crimes against Milosevic including deportation, forcible transfer, murder and persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds.
In 1998-1999 the Yugoslav government cracked down on ethnic Albanians living in the Serbian province of Kosovo. During the conflict more than 10,000 people lost their lives.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS