As the old saying goes: ‘the wheels
of justice grind slow, but they grind exceeding small.’ It is more than 20 years
since the Srebrenica massacre, and eight years since the
trial began at The Hague of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic for his
part in it.
But now he has finally been
sentenced to 40 years in prison on one charge of genocide and nine other
counts, including crimes against humanity over the siege and shelling of
Sarajevo which left nearly 12,000 people dead. Defending himself, Karadzic had
denied the charges.
Karadzic’s lawyer says he will be
appealing against the verdict. Meanwhile, the trial of General Ratko Mladic,
who commanded the Bosnian Serb forces, is drawing to a close.
The United Nations top human rights official Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein
welcomed the verdict against Karadzic as ‘hugely significant’, but the current president
of the Bosnian Serb Republic, Milorad Dodik, rejected it. (See also my posts of 5 April 2012 and 28 July
2015.)
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