SOLDIER PLEADS GUILTY IN BOSNIA WAR MASSACRE.Byline: Marlise Simons The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times The international tribunal on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia handed down its first verdict Friday, sentencing a former soldier of the Bosnian Serb army to 10 years in prison for his role in the massacre of Muslim civilians in 1995 near Srebrenica. Drazen Erdemovic, a 25-year-old ethnic Croat who confessed to taking part in an execution squad and killing scores of unarmed men, was charged with ``crimes against humanity.'' The conviction is also the first to be issued by an international war crimes tribunal since the trials conducted in Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II. Officials at the court, which has long been criticized for moving slowly, hailed the verdict as a significant step, and the chief prosecutor, Louise Arbour Louise Arbour (born February 10, 1947 in Montreal, Quebec) is the current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and a former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. , described the decision as a ``momentous event in the life of the tribunal.'' But the sentence also served as a strong reminder of the tribunal's shortcomings A shortcoming is a character flaw. Shortcomings may also be:
None of the senior military commanders who issued the orders to kill civilians on those days in July 1995, or on any other day during nearly four years of war in Bosnia, have been arrested. All together, 74 people have been indicted INDICTED, practice. When a man is accused by a bill of indictment preferred by a grand jury, he is said to be indicted. for war crimes, and among the seven who are in the court's custody, there are no military or political leaders of the war. Legal experts here said the case of Erdemovic was also the least difficult to come before the tribunal. There was no trial because Erdemovic pleaded guilty to his role in the massacres from the beginning. The young man, who sat impassively im·pas·sive adj. 1. Devoid of or not subject to emotion. 2. Revealing no emotion; expressionless. 3. Archaic Incapable of physical sensation. 4. Motionless; still. as one of his three judges read out the sentence Friday, was first brought to The Hague in March as a witness to testify against Gen. Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, respectively the military and political leaders of the Bosnian Serbs during the war. Neither of them has been arrested. In May, prosecutors charged him with crimes against humanity and murder because they argued that the crimes, to which he confessed willingly, could not go unpunished unpunished Adjective without suffering or resulting in a penalty: the guilty must not go unpunished, such crimes should not remain unpunished Adj. 1. . In a newspaper interview published in the French daily Le Figaro Le Figaro (English: The Barber) is one of the leading French morning daily newspapers. Its editorial line is conservative and has generally been supportive of the Rally for the Republic political party and its successor, the in March, Erdemovic said he had killed about 70 civilians. But during later testimony before the tribunal, he said he did not know exactly how many people he had shot as he took part in a firing squad. He put the number of Muslim men killed that day in a field near Srebrenica at 1,200. In reaching Friday's verdict, Judge Claude Jorda of France, who headed the three-judge panel, said the tribunal had taken into account the accused's age at the time of the crime - 23 - his low military rank and the remorse Remorse See also Regret. Ayenbite of Inwit (Remorse of Conscience) Middle English version of medieval moral treatise, c. 1340. [Br. Lit. he had expressed repeatedly. But the judges did not admit the plea for clemency Leniency or mercy. A power given to a public official, such as a governor or the president, to in some way lower or moderate the harshness of punishment imposed upon a prisoner. Clemency is considered to be an act of grace. that he made based on the fact that he had acted ``under superior orders'' during the five-hour killing spree on July 16; they said they lacked evidence to back up his claim. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Drazen Erdemovic Confessed to role in executions |
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