Momčilo Krajišnik

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Momčilo Krajišnik at the ICTY
Momčilo Krajišnik at the ICTY

Momčilo Krajišnik (Cyrillic: Момчило Крајишник) (born 20 January 1945 in Sarajevo) is a former Bosnian Serb politician. Between 1990 and 1992, he was the speaker of the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska and, between June and December 1992, a member of the expanded Presidency of the Bosnian Serb Republic. After the Bosnian war he became the Serb representative on the three-member Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1996 through 1998. He lost his bid for re-election in 1998 to Živko Radišić.

Contents

[edit] ICTY Conviction

Krajišnik was indicted of various crimes against humanity (namely extermination, murder, persecution, deportation, and forced transfer), murder as a war crime, and genocide in relation to acts committed in 1992 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was arrested on April 3, 2000 by French commandos of SFOR, and is in custody at the detention unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Netherlands. After the death of Slobodan Milošević, Krajišnik is the highest-ranking politician on trial at the ICTY.

On 27 September 2006, Krajišnik was convicted of the following crimes against humanity: extermination, murder, persecution, deportation, and forced transfer. He was acquitted of the charges of murder as a war crime, genocide, and complicity in genocide. He was sentenced to 27 years imprisonment. [1]

[edit] Acquittal of genocide

Krajišnik's acquittal of genocide or of complicity in genocide became a controversial issue.[citation needed] According to the ICTY court there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide charges against him. Although the judgement states that genocide did take place in Bosnia, it adds that it was not possible to prove the intent of the perpetrators.[citation needed] Because of this, several organizations criticized the verdict, on the grounds that it seems to go against established definitions of genocide.[2] However, the indictment under which Krajišnik was charged did not cover acts that took place after December 1992, such as the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995.

Still, both Krajišnik and Radovan Karadžić were warned by Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladić, also indicted on genocide charges, that their plans could not be committed without committing genocide:

People are not little stones, or keys in someone's pocket, that can be moved from one place to another just like that... Therefore, we cannot precisely arrange for only Serbs to stay in one part of the country while removing others painlessly. I do not know how Mr Krajišnik and Mr Karadžić will explain that to the world. That is genocide, said Mladić. [2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bosnia Serb jailed for war crimes, BBC News, 27 September, 2006
  2. ^ a b Bosnia's ‘Accidental’ Genocide Edina Becirevic, Institute for War & Peace Reporting, Tribunal Update N° 470, 29 September, 2006. Also published at [1]

[edit] Further reading