By Lien van der Leij
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Yugoslavia
war crimes tribunal Monday found two
Bosnian Muslims and a Bosnian Croat guilty
of rape, torture and murder at an infamous
prison camp, but unexpectedly acquitted a
Bosnian Muslim army commander.
Commander Zajnil Delalic was told he could
walk free Monday after the court ruled he did
not have ``command and control'' over
camp guards.
Prosecutors, who had demanded a 10-year
sentence for Delalic, said they would appeal
the verdict.
Fellow Bosnian Muslims Hazim Delic and
Esad Landzo are to serve 20 years and 15
years respectively for their roles in
perpetuating a regime of terror at the
Celebici camp in central Bosnia in 1992.
Landzo's crimes were ``suggestive of
significant imagination and a perverse
pleasure in the infliction of pain and
suffering,'' Presiding Judge Adolphus
Karibi-Whyte said.
This was the first time the U.N. court had
convicted Muslims after finding a Serb and
a Croat guilty in two previous cases.
Bosnian Croat camp commander Zdravko
Mucic will serve seven years for his actions
during the bitter 1992-95 war which pitted
Serbs, Croats and Muslims against each
other and killed more than 200,000 people.
The 22-month-long Celebici case was the
first to tackle the issue of command
responsibility and the first to deal with
reports of atrocities against Serbs.
It focused on the events at Celebici Camp
near Konjic in central Bosnia, where at least
14 out of some 250 detainees were killed,
tortured, raped and beaten during May to
December 1992.
``This judgement is the first elucidation of
the concept of command responsibility by
an international judicial body since the
cases decided in the wake of World War II,''
the tribunal said in a statement.
Command responsibility not only covers
military personnel, but civilians holding
positions of responsibility, it added.
Observers said the court's findings were
significant because it meant that proving
command responsibility need not hinge on
the accused having been appointed by a
particular authority -- something difficult to
prove in the anarchic climate of a
disintegrating Yugoslavia.
The court found former camp commander
Mucic bore command responsibility for nine
murders and six instances of torture
because he could have intervened.
``Mr Mucic was clearly derelict in (his) duty
and allowed those under his authority to
commit the most heinous of offences
without taking any disciplinary action,''
Karibi-Whyte said.
Delic, 34-year-old deputy commander at the
camp, was acquitted of command
responsibility on the grounds he had not
held superior authority. But the court found
him guilty of personal involvement in two
murders, torture and rape.
Karibi-Whyte said Landzo had been given a
lesser sentence than the gravity of his
crimes demanded, given his youth --
Landzo was 19 at the time.
Landzo, the lowest ranking of the accused,
took the stand in July to express remorse
and said he had only been acting under
orders, describing a reign of terror under
Mucic, the 43-year-old former camp
commander.
Reut11:27 11-16-98
(16 Nov 1998 11:26 EST)
