AMSTERDAM: UN chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte has appealed against the two-year sentence the UN war crimes tribunal gave a Bosnian Muslim wartime commander of Srebrenica, saying it was too short, her spokesman said yesterday.
Last month, the tribunal in The Hague found Naser Oric guilty of failing to prevent the murder of Serbs near the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica early in the 1992-95 conflict. He was released for time already served.
Ponte’s spokesman Anton Nikiforov said her office was disappointed with the verdict as they had demanded 18 years in prison for Oric.
“She signed a notice of appeal with the court’s appeal chamber on Friday ... we don’t agree with the sentence,” Nikiforov said.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and the Serbian media have denounced the sentence as a mockery of justice and proof that the Hague tribunal is biased against Serbia.
Bosnian Serb forces overran the eastern town of Srebrenica in July 1995 and killed some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II.
But Serbs say 3,263 of their own people had earlier been killed by forces under Oric’s command.
Serbia is under Western pressure to arrest and hand over wartime Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, accused of genocide in Srebrenica. In May, the European Union froze membership talks with Belgrade because of its failure to deliver him.
Oric, considered a hero by many Bosnian Muslims for leading Srebrenica’s defence, returned to Bosnia earlier this month. The UN court cleared him of four of the six charges at his war crimes trial. – Reuters