THE HAGUE, Netherlands: Former Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, once dubbed “The Butcher of Bosnia,” returned to a UN court Monday as his trial for genocide and war crimes in the 1990s conflict nears an end.
More than four years after Mladic’s trial opened at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, prosecutors began three days of closing arguments seeking to dismiss claims he was not responsible for some of the worst bloodshed in Europe since World War II.
Prosecutors say Mladic was in charge and took credit for a plan which “radically altered the demographic picture of the portions of Bosnia claimed by the Bosnian Serbs.”
“What happened in municipality after municipality was not an unintended effect of the military campaign, but its very purpose,” prosecutor Alan Tieger told the court.
“Ethnic cleansing does not appear to be the consequence of the military campaign, but its goal.”
Mladic, 74, has denied 11 charges including two of genocide, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the bloody 1992-95 Bosnian conflict in which more than 100,000 people died and 2.2 million others were left homeless.
Dressed in a grey suit and a blue and white tie, Mladic appeared somber Monday as the hearings opened. He stared for a long time at the journalists and public watching from the gallery, before turning to read his papers.
Mladic, the brutish military commander of Serb forces, came to symbolize a barbaric plan to rid multi-ethnic Bosnia of Croats and Muslims, fueled by the desire to establish an “ethnically pure” Greater Serbia.
He is notably accused of being behind the punishing 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which claimed an estimated 10,000 lives in a relentless campaign of shelling and sniping.
Mladic is also on trial over his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys, who were rounded up and shot when his forces overran Dutch UN peacekeepers in the enclave.
Tieger said Mladic had sought to make the lives of Bosnian Muslims there “unbearable.”
The defense, which has repeatedly sought to have the case thrown out, will start its closing arguments on Friday. A last-minute bid on Monday to have the hearings postponed was dismissed by the three judges.
The defense has maintained that Mladic and his forces were acting in self-defense to protect against attacks by Bosnian Muslim forces, saying he is the victim of a “political” trial.
But Tieger denounced false “defense attempts to transform Mladic into a benign but ineffective officer... who was less important than the core commanders.”
The prosecution showed a video of a discussion among Serb military commanders which Tieger said proved “who was in charge, who called the shots,” arguing that Mladic was now trying to “pass off responsibility for what he once bragged about.”
Families of the victims are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the case but a verdict is not expected until 2017.
It is the last case from the former Yugoslavia being heard before the ICTY which was set up before the conflict ended to try perpetrators of atrocities.
Munira Subasic, who heads the Mothers of Srebrenica group, was attending the hearing on Monday on what would have been the 42nd birthday of her son who was killed in the genocide in 1995.
Subasic has said it was unfortunate that justice had been so long coming.
“Those who still believe (Radovan) Karadzic and Mladic are heroes would perhaps have thought differently today if they had been sentenced very quickly after the war,” she told AFP recently.
Karadzic, sentenced to 40 years in March, and Mladic remain the highest-profile actors from the wars to see their trials completed after former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic died in his UN detention cell in 2006.
Indicted in July 1995, Mladic evaded capture for some 16 years. Finally captured in May 2011, he was transferred to a UN detention center in The Hague where he remains behind bars.
’Butcher of Bosnia’ Mladic back in court as trial nears end
’Butcher of Bosnia’ Mladic back in court as trial nears end
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday his country has no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with China. He was responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100 percent tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing.
Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with tariffs.
Trump claims otherwise, posting that “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone! President DJT”
The prime minister said under the free trade agreement with the US and Mexico there are commitments not to pursue free trade agreements with nonmarket economies without prior notification.
“We have no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy,” Carney said. “What we have done with China is to rectify some issues that developed in the last couple of years.”
In 2024, Canada mirrored the United States by putting a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles from Beijing and a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum. China had responded by imposing 100 percent import taxes on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25 percent on pork and seafood.
Breaking with the United States this month during a visit to China, Carney cut its 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on those Canadian products.
Carney has said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1 percent, growing to about 70,000 over five years. He noted there was no cap before 2024. He also has said the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3 percent of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.
Trump posted a video Sunday in which the chief executive of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association warns there will be no Canadian auto industry without US access, while noting the Canadian market alone is too small to justify large scale manufacturing from China.
“A MUST WATCH. Canada is systematically destroying itself. The China deal is a disaster for them. Will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history. All their businesses are moving to the USA. I want to see Canada SURVIVE AND THRIVE! President DJT,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump’s post on Saturday said that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”
“We can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We have a , but based off — based on that, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos.”
Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance.
Carney has emerged as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the US under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu” and he warned about coercion by great powers — without mentioning Trump’s name. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the World Economic Forum.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States as a 51st state. He posted an altered image on social media this week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory.
