Rebel leader convicted of war crimes

THE Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted a wartime leader of Croatia’s rebel Serbs of murder, torture and persecution yesterday and sentenced him to 35 years in prison for a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign of non-Serbs in Croatia.

Judges said Milan Martic, 52, was responsible for hundreds of murders from 1991, when Serbs in the Krajina region of southern Croatia rebelled and set up a breakaway mini-state until 1995, when Croatian forces recaptured the area. He was also convicted of ordering two days of indiscriminate cluster bomb shelling of the Croatian capital Zagreb in May 1995 that killed at least seven civilians and injured more than 200.

Most of the crimes were “committed against elderly people, persons held in detention and civilians. The special vulnerability of these victims adds to the gravity of the crimes,” said Judge Bakone Moloto.

The three-judge UN panel said Martic was deeply involved in a criminal plot with other Serb leaders, including Slobodan Milosevic, Gen Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, to carve out an ethnically pure “greater Serbia” as Yugoslavia crumbled to include about one-third of Croatia. Martic did not comment during the hearing.

Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader called Martic a key player in the aggression toward Croatians and said Martic was “responsible for the deaths of many Croats”.

Even some Serbs applauded the verdict, saying it would help Croatia move on from its painful past. Milorad Pupovac, a key leader of Croatia’s ethnic Serbs, said Martic symbolised the hostility among some Serbs in Croatia in the early 1990s.

Martic was indicted inJuly 1995, just two months after ordering the shelling of Zagreb. The two-day indiscriminate attack in 1995 hit buildings including a school, a children’s hospital and the national theatre.

Martic admitted to the press that he ordered the shelling to retaliate against Croatian attacks on Serbs and to warn against attacks.