Bosnian generals surrender to Hague
The wartime commander of Bosnia’s Muslim army, Rasim Delic, and former Bosnian Serb general Radivoje Miletic flew to The Hague to surrender to the United Nations war crimes tribunal.
Delic got a rousing send-off from government officials and hundreds of war veterans in Sarajevo before boarding his plane en route to The Hague, where he will face trial for war crimes committed by foreign fighters.
“My fellow fighters, thanks for coming and don’t worry. Justice wins,” a smiling Delic told the crowd at Sarajevo airport on Monday.
Bosnian Prime Minister Adnan Terzic, Muslim officials and the war veterans, some of them chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest), had gathered from dawn to bid farewell to the retired general.
A spokesman for The Hague tribunal said Delic was taken into custody when he arrived in the Netherlands.
Criticism
Bosnian Muslim officials criticised the four-count indictment against Delic as an attempt to spread the guilt from the conflict equally, but unfairly, among the warring parties – Serbs, Croats and Muslims.
The Bosnian Muslims were heavily outgunned and suffered by far the highest casualties in the 1992-95 war.
 |
|
Almost 8000 Bosnians were killed |
Hundreds of foreign fighters, who referred to themselves as “Mujahidin”, fought alongside them in what they saw as an unequal war tolerated by the West and aimed at wiping out fellow Muslims.
Tribunal prosecutors accuse Delic of being responsible for atrocities committed by foreign fighters under his command, including the murder of at least 24 Bosnian Croats outside the village of Maline in June 1993.
The indictment also says Delic failed to prevent crimes at the Kamenica prison camp, where prosecutors say the foreign fighters killed and captured Bosnian Serb soldiers and raped and sexually assaulted three women.
Little fanfare
In Belgrade, Miletic boarded a Hague-bound plane with no fanfare, the fourth aide of fugitive wartime commander Ratko Mladic to surrender to the UN tribunal.
Miletic was the chief of operations under Mladic and was indicted for ethnic cleansing in the UN-designated “safe areas” of Srebrenica and Zepa in 1995. Almost 8000 Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica.
Between 150,000 and 200,000 people were killed in the war. The tribunal has altogether indicted more than 120 people from the former Yugoslavia, mostly Serbs.