The story of the only British prime minister to be assassinated + the murder of Cambridge's first professor of history

Spencer Perceval is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated. Here's the story of how he was gunned down in the Houses of Parliament in 1812. And here too is the tale of how Cambridge University's first professor of history was murdered in The Hague. I was in conversation with Andy Lake of BBC Radio Cambridgeshire about my book, 'Assassins' Deeds'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmVpdaV5fk8

20 years on - Karadzic convicted

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.)

African leaders try to obstruct international justice

Laurent Gbagbo, former president the Ivory Coast, has become the first former head of state to go on trial before the International Criminal Court at The Hague. He refused to step down after losing an election in 2010, and is accused of encouraging his militias and security forces to commit murder, rape and other crimes to keep him in power.

A very good thing that he should face trial, you might think, but that does not seem to be how other African rulers see it, and they appear to be using the African Union to try to hamstring the court.

When the ICC was set up in 2002, African leaders seemed pretty keen, but now the African Union has resolved to go on shielding President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan from facing charges of genocide in Darfur, and criticised prosecutions being brought against other African leaders such as Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, who is accused of orchestrating violence after an election 8 years ago.

Of course, the ICC is not perfect, and many leaders in Africa and other places who should face trial are powerful enough to escape, but surely it is surely in the interests of Africa’s people that some should face justice rather than none. If the continent’s rulers care about that.

Srebrenica - the battle over its history

Twenty years ago this month, 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were murdered by Serb forces at Srebrenica in the worst mass murder in Europe since World War Two. It was condemned as genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and also by the International Court of Justice.

But Serb leaders deny the massacre was genocide, arguing that Serb victims of the wars that followed Yugoslavia's break-up have been forgotten, and a recent UN Security Council resolution denouncing it was vetoed by Russia.

Today Bosnia is split between Serb, Bosnian and Croat run sectors. Bosnian children learn all about the massacre, while Bosnian Croat children hear little about it, and Bosnian Serb children are taught that its mastermind, Ratko Mladic, currently on trial at The Hague, was a hero.

Srebrenica has never recovered, but one bright spot in the story is the absence of inter-communal revenge killings, though worryingly last month ISIS released a video calling on Balkan Muslims to murder their non-Muslim neighbours. 

Another historic explosion - Delft 1654

Watched an excellent programme by Andrew Graham-Dixon about the artist Jan Vermeer on BBC-4 the other night, and learned about a huge explosion that had previously escaped my attention.    In 1654, 30 tons of gunpowder were being stored in a former convent in the painter’s home town of Delft. 

On the morning of October 12, the keeper of the magazine opened the store to check a sample of powder.   For reasons we do not know, the whole thing blew up.   Fortunately, many local people were away at a market in Schiedam and a fair in The Hague.

Even so more than 100 people were killed, and thousands injured.   According to an account written 13 years later, the explosion happened with ‘such a horrible rush and force, that the arch of heaven seemed to crack and to burst, the whole earth to split, and hell to open its jaws.’

All that was left of the store was a crater fifteen feet deep, while buildings were flattened for ‘hundreds of feet’ around.     More than 200 houses were destroyed, and 300 seriously damaged.

Two war criminals sentenced

Two convicted war criminals have received long prison sentences.    The former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, has been sent to gaol for 50 years for aiding and abetting rebels in Sierra Leone during the civil war of 1991-2002.

The judge at The Hague acknowledged that Taylor had never set foot in Sierra Leone, but declared he had ‘been found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous crimes in human history.’   

The former president backed rebels from the Revolutionary United Front, who killed tens of thousands of people, employing a strategy of murder, rape, and hacking off limbs. Taylor, who is 64, says he will appeal.  

Meanwhile, in Rwanda, Callixte Nzabonimana, a former youth minister, has been found guilty by a court in Tanzania of genocide and other crimes during the 100 days of madness in 1994, which saw 800,000 people murdered.   He was imprisoned for life, but he too says he will appeal.

War crimes arrests - Serbia and Rwanda

Supporters of suspected war criminal, Ratko Mladic, are due to march in Belgrade today to try to stop him being extradited to the Hague to face trial.   The former Bosnian Serb army chief is accused of being responsible for the murder of about 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, as well as other crimes. 

Serbia’s failure to arrest Gen Mladic for 16 years means that he is now aged 69, and his lawyers have been trying to resist having him handed over to the court on grounds of ill health.    An appeal will be heard tomorrow.    Meanwhile, the Serbian war crimes prosecutor says that anyone who helped to shield Gen Mladic from justice could find themselves in serious trouble.

The general’s political boss, Radavan Karadzic, is already awaiting trial at the Hague after being arrested in 2008.    The former Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, died during his trial in 2006.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most notorious leaders of the Rwandan Hutu militia during the 1994 genocide has been arrested.   Bernard Munyagishari was wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Held to account for Srebrenica

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has just handed out its toughest ever sentences. Two security chiefs in the Bosnian Serb army, Vujadin Popovic and Ljubisa Beara, have both been convicted for committing genocide in the Srebrenica massacre, and sent to prison for life. Five other defendants were gaoled for between five and 35 years.

In April 1993, the UN declared Srebrenica a safe haven, but it was protected only by a small unit of troops. In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army took the town. They bussed out all the women, and the men aged under 16 or over 65. The remaining men – nearly 8,400 of them - they massacred.

The Srebrenica massacre was the worst in Europe since World War Two. The court said that Popovic and Beara were acting under orders from General Ratko Mladic, who is wanted for trial but still at large.

The judgement also declared the massacre was part of "a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population" begun on the orders of Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, who is now on trial before the tribunal at The Hague. See also my blogs of 16 October, 2009 and May 11, 2010.

Kosovo war crimes

A mass grave thought to contain the bodies of about 250 Kosovo Albanians has been found just over the border in Serbia. Officials said a building appeared to have been erected over the bodies to try to hide them.

In 2001, the bodies of more than 800 Kosovo Albanians were found at a number of sites in Serbia, some of them inside police compounds. Altogether, more than 11,000 people died in the fighting in Kosovo – mostly Albanians, though 2,300 were ethnic Serbs. Another 1,800 people are still missing.

A former top Serbian police official Vlastimir Djordjevic is on trial before the UN’s war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, accused of being involved in the murders of hundreds of ethnic Albanians. He was a close associate of Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 while still on trial for war crimes.

The former Serb military commander, Ratko Mladic, remains at large. (See also my blog of October 16.)

Sierra Leone trial

A special United Nations court at The Hague has turned down a plea from former Liberian President Charles Taylor that charges of crimes against humanity that he faces should be dismissed. Taylor is being tried on 11 counts relating to his alleged role in the brutal civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone, which cost tens of thousands of civilian lives. He is accused of bankrolling and equipping rebels who committed murder, rape, hacked off people's limbs, and used child soldiers.

Taylor had been a warlord who launched Liberia’s civil war in 1989, before being elected president in 1997. Two years later, though, an insurrection against him began and in 2003 he resigned under pressure from the United States. The trial is scheduled to resume on June 29, and if Taylor is convicted, he will serve his sentence in the UK.

Last month, an international court in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown sent three rebel leaders to gaol for a total of 120 years for war crimes and crimes against humanity (see my blogs of March 4 and April 10) In Rwanda too, the process of holding people to account for their part in the country’s genocide goes on. (See my blogs of January 23, March 1, 4, 23, 25, April 9.)