Courtside

Ex-Bosnian Army Chief Gets Prison Term

But judges could not agree on whether General Rasim Delic had effective control over mujahedin.

By Merdijana Sadovic in Sarajevo (TU No 569, 19-Sep-08)

Hague tribunal judges this week sentenced the former Bosnian army chief to three years imprisonment for crimes committed by foreign Muslim fighters, or mujahedin, against captive Bosnian Serb soldiers in 1995.

General Rasim Delic was charged with crimes committed by mujahedin in three separate incidents between 1993 and 1995, but the three-judge panel found him guilty of only one of them.

According to the verdict read out in court on September 15, the trial chamber decided that Delic was guilty “of failing to take the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent and punish the crimes of cruel treatment committed by the El Mujahed Detachment (EMD)…in the village of Livade and in the Kamenica Camp [central Bosnia] in July and August 1995”.

In a summary of the judgement, the judges concluded, “ In specific instances 12 captured members of the Bosnian Serb Army were subjected to various kinds of maltreatment, including severe beatings and electric shocks. The captives were also forced to kiss the severed heads of other detainees.”

The trial chamber found that Delić bore no responsibility for the crime committed in the villages of Maline and Bikosi in the Travnik municipality of central Bosnia in June 1993, when about 24 Bosnian Croat civilians and soldiers were killed and six others injured by the mujahedin. The judges ruled that no superior-subordinate relationship had existed between Delić and the perpetrators at that time.

Delic was also acquitted of charges of cruel treatment and murder in relation to the events that took place in September 1995 in the village of Kesten and Kamenica Camp when members of the EMD killed one elderly Serb man and 52 Bosnian Serb soldiers, as well as abusing 10 others. The trial chamber “could not conclude beyond reasonable doubt that Delić had reason to know that these crimes were about to be or were committed”.

At the end of his trial in June this year, the prosecutors demanded 15 years imprisonment for Delic, while the defence called for an acquittal.

Delic’s defence counsel Vasvija Vidovic told IWPR her team would appeal the verdict. Spokeswoman for the tribunal’s prosecutors, Olga Kavran, said it was "too early" for the prosecution to say whether they will file an appeal, because they first want to read the judgement carefully. They have 30 days to do so.

Delić, who took the post of the commander of the main staff of the Bosnian army in June 1993, is one of the most senior military commanders tried before the Hague tribunal on charges of superior criminal responsibility for the crimes of murder and cruel treatment.

The proceedings against him started in July 2007. Central to this case was whether the general had effective command and control over mujahedin fighters.

In the summer of 1992, the first foreign Muslim fighters arrived in the areas of Travnik and Zenica in central Bosnia, to fight on the Bosniak side. During the trial, many prosecution and defence witnesses told the court that mujahedin were very independent and did not obey orders from the Bosnian army staff.

In an attempt to put these unruly units under the Bosnian army control, on August 13, 1993 General Delic signed an order authorising the formation of a detachment named “El Mujahedin”. Following its establishment, the EMD significantly grew in size and by 1995 it comprised approximately several hundred fighters.

In their decision announced this week, the judges said they were “satisfied that from the time of its establishment in August 1993 until its disbandment in December 1995, the EMD had been a unit de jure subordinated to the ABiH (Bosnian army) 3rd Corps or to one of the units that had been subordinated in turn to the ABiH 3rd Corps. Since Rasim Delic was the de jure superior of the 3rd Corps, it follows that the EMD was de jure subordinated to Rasim Delic”.

However, the judges could not agree on whether Delic had effective control over this unit at any time related to the indictment.

Two of the judges found that “the structure, organisation and command and control within the ABiH had improved significantly from the time when Rasim Delic had been appointed as Commander of the Main Staff on 8 June 1993 until the EMD had been disbanded in December 1995 at the end of the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the majority’s view, when the crimes were committed in Livade and Kamenica in July and September 1995, Rasim Delić was in a consolidated position which enabled him to enforce his decisions upon his subordinates, including the EMD and its members”.

However, in a dissenting opinion, Presiding judge Bacone Moloto held the view that Delic “did not have effective control over the EMD at any time from the time of his assumption of duties as the Commander of the Main Staff of the ABiH…until the EMD was disbanded”.

He also noted that the EMD throughout 1995 erratically complied with the Bosnian army orders.

“The EMD carried out the tasks given by the ABiH only when it chose to do so. The evidence shows that the issuing of ABiH orders was preceded by an ‘agreement’ with the EMD, and this was inconsistent with the system of command and control,” noted Judge Moloto.

He added that the majority of the judges seemed to draw Delic’s effective control from the fact that he did not take measures against the EMD, while he could do so. But, according to Judge Moloto, “Delic’s inaction only confirmed, in light of the totality of the evidence, the absence of his effective control”.

Judge Moloto also recalled that, despite the fact that the ABiH, on some occasions, took investigative steps against EMD members, “all attempts to punish [them] for their criminal behaviour inevitably failed”.

Delic’s defence council Vasvija Vidovic told IWPR she was very encouraged by Judge Moloto’s dissenting opinion.

“What Judge Moloto said is exactly the position of the defence in this case. We have argued from the very beginning of this trial that General Delic did not have effective control over mujahedin, and it seems Judge Moloto has taken the same view,” said Vidovic.

Merdijana Sadovic is IWPR’s Hague tribunal manager. IWPR’s reporter in The Hague Simon Jennings contributed to this report.