  | You have information to share ?
Or mistakes to correct ?
click here...
|
|
| |  | | Zdravko Tolimir | | | context : | Former Yugoslavia  | | judgement place : | ICTY (Yugoslavia) | | status : | Indicted | | particulars : | Arrested on 31 May 2007 in Bosnia and Herzegovina; handed over to the ICTY; trial began on 26 February 2010 | | position : | Assistant Commandant in charge of information and safety, within the main staff of the Bosnian Serb army (VRS) |
|
| | | | On 21 September 2005, following the Prosecutor’s demand, the ICTY judges agreed to join the 9 cases linked to Srebrenica’s massacre. The nine accused – Ljubisa Beara, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Milan Gvero, Radivoje Miletic, Drago Nikolic, Vinko Pandurevic, Vujadin Popovic, Zdravko Tolimir and Milorad Trbic – were all senior Bosnian Serb army, VRS, and police officers.
This trial, at least in terms of numbers, was to be the most important of the ICTY.
All the accused but Zdravko Tolimir were already in The Hague following a wave of voluntary surrenders in Serbia in early 2005.
Eight were high-ranking officers in the VRS, while Borovcanin was a deputy commander of the Special Police Brigade.
They all faced charges in relation to what the prosecution called two interrelated, joint criminal enterprises: one to “force the Muslim population from the [UN safe zones] Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves” and the second “to murder all the able-bodied men captured from the Srebrenica enclave”.
At least 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica.
Nine of the accused were charged with murder as a crime against humanity; eight with murder as a war crime and persecution; five with genocide and/or complicity in or conspiracy to commit genocide; and five with extermination. All were charged on the basis of their individual criminal responsibility, and two - Borovcanin and Pandurevic - faced allegations relating to their superior responsibility.
In a tightly argued decision, which included a separate, but not dissenting, opinion from the presiding judge himself, the judges concluded that the charges the men faced related to “acts carried out by the same people, against the same people, during one period of time and in the same area, and this is all that is required” to allow a joint trial.
Under the tribunal’s own rules, the judges also had to consider whether having a joint trial would avoid duplication of evidence, “promote judicial economy”, minimise hardship of victims and witnesses and ensure consistency of verdicts.
The judges also considered whether a joint trial would adversely affect the rights of one of the accused. They decided that there was “no concrete risk of prejudice” because the evidence that would be heard in a joint trial would be the same as if it were a single trial. | |    | |  |  | | nationality : | | | Bosnia and herzegovina | | | date of birth : | | | 27.11.1948 | | | last time seen : | | | The Hague, Netherlands | | | period of charges : | | | 07.1995 - 11.1995 | | | charges : | | | Crimes against humanity
Genocide
War crimes | | | profile last modified : | | | 02.03.2010 |
| |
| | |
|
|
