Oric’s Acquittal Beyond the Pale

“Based on the Hague tribunal’s prior work, I expected that the court’s appellation board at least confirms the ICTY verdict, according to which the genocidal criminal, commander of the 28th Muslim division in ‘demilitarized’ Srebrenica, was found guilty and convicted to only two years imprisonment — less than he had spent in Scheveningen prison during the trial. Decision by the appellation board to overturn that verdict and pronounce the war criminal innocent is indeed beyond even the most pessimistic expectations,” Dr Milan Bulajic, Chairman of the Genocide Research Foundation, told Glas Javnosti.

“Commander of the 28th Muslim division was charged, tried and convicted only for the period between September 24, 1992 and March 20, 1993 — that is the period of six months alone. This is the time after the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Peoples Army [JNA], on May 19, 1992, when the Serbian population [in Bosnia] was left to its own devices, to defend itself on its own from Naser Oric’s cutthroats,” Bulajic explained.

“The Drina Corps of the Republic of Srpska Army [Bosnian Serb Army] was formed on November 1, 1992. However, Oric’s mobs have been committing atrocious crimes all the way through to the mid-1995, up to their genocidal crime in the Serbian village of Visnjica, immediately before the Srebrenica takeover [by the Bosnian Serb Army] in July 1995. And yet, Oric was charged only for the atrocities against the captured Serbs held in Srebrenica prison, and on the basis of ‘command responsibility’ [but not for the crimes he personally took part in]. Among his accomplices, only some Arif Krdzic is mentioned, while not a word has been said about the proven war crimes of the mob headed by Tursunovic,” Bulajic said.

He pointed out that Hague tribunal had mentioned “operations” in some of the Serbian-populated villages around Srebrenica, like Ratkovici, Jezestica, Fakovici, Bjelovac, Kravica, Siskovici and the smaller settlements around.

“But the genocidal crimes, like the one in village Kravica on the Eastern Orthodox Christmas on January 6, 1993, are not even touched by the Hague! In all those atrocities, Naser Oric personally took part. This is not the issue of command responsibility alone,” Bulajic said.

Bloodthirsty Oric Sang During Massacres

He emphasized the well-known fact that Toronto Star reporter Bill Schiller described his visit to Naser Oric in his Srebrenica apartment in January 1994, when Oric showed him the shocking video recording of the event he took part in. Oric’s mujahedeens have filmed the numerous corpses of the Serbs they slaughtered, the severed heads and the fleeing Serbian population.

“We ambushed them, we launched those guys to the moon!,” Oric boasted to Canadian reporter. “We killed 114 Serbs there!” According to Schiller, the video recording also showed post-massacre “celebrations, with singers with wobbly voices chanting [Oric's] praises,” quotes Bulajic, appalled by the Hague’s selective justice and the willful ignorance of some of the worst mass crimes committed against the Serbs during the Bosnian civil war.

He stressed that Hague tribunal has also completely ignored the crime of arming the 28th Muslim division stationed in the so-called “demilitarized zone” of Srebrenica, where the UN Security Council prohibited the presence of anyone’s army and weapons.

“Oric was abusing the ‘safe-zone’ status of Srebrenica, and kept using the town as his base for the genocidal assaults against the surrounding Serbian villages”, Bulajic said.

“Republic of Srpska Association of the former camp-prisoners and the Committee for gathering data about the crimes against humanity have compiled a list of 3,282 victims of Serbian ethnicity from Srebrenica municipality, by their first and last names. For all those war crimes only Naser Oric was convicted. Now, by the verdict of the appellation board, he was acquitted,” Bulajic concluded.

Serbs Alone Tried by the Hague

Commenting the mockery of the verdict issued to Naser Oric by the Hague tribunal, Zoran Krasic said at the recent press conference that it is entirely clear that the Hague tries and convicts Serbs alone.

“Judging by the acquital of cutthroat Oric, those 3,300 Serbs — civilians killed in and around Srebrenica, have either committed a suicide, or they were killed by the other Serbs”, Krasic, a member of the legal team for defense of Dr Seselj, said.

He assessed that the Hague tribunal does not care for the truth, but only focuses on convicting as many Serbs as possible, declaring them guilty for all the events in former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.

“And it suits the [domestic] political bloc which advocated prolonging the bombardment of our country to have the greatest possible number of Serbs convicted by the Hague, since that is precisely why the West installed them in power,” Krasic said.

Seselj vs. Hague Prosecution: 33—0

Speaking about the mock-trial against Vojislav Seselj, whose indictment boils down to exercising his right to free speech, Krasic said that the Hague tribunal has failed to present a single evidence to prove the charges against the leader of the Radicals. He said that Vojislav Seselj, simply put, leads with 33-0 against the prosecution, which called 33 “witnesses” thus far.

“The prosecutors used up some 50% of their allocated time to present the evidence against Seselj, but they have failed to prove a single thing,” Krasic said.