Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), Serge Brammertz, yesterday addressed the Security Council of the UN.
The Prosecutor started his address by informing that the first instance verdict in the case of Mladic and the judgment on appeal in the case of Prlic and others is expected by the end of November 2017, and the process in the case Stanisic and Simatovic is expected to start next week.
The Prosecutor also informed the Security Council of UN on the status of other proceedings before the MICT, including appeals in cases of Karadzic and Seselj.
Brammertz expressed the concern of the Prosecution about continuous and widespread denial of warncrimes as well as refusing to accept facts that were established by the ICTY and MICT.
“The message of denial and revisionism is very clear. We recognize only our victims, but not yours. Your war criminals are our heroes.” He called everyone to urgently respond to this.
“When irresponsible officials are using division, discrimination, and hatred to ensure their power, then conflicts and atrocities can get their own logic. This happened two decades ago when the genocide and ethnic cleansing was started, and it is still the case today. With the closure of the MICT and the closure of the ICTY, it is more important than ever to finally respond to this issue. There must be a common acceptance of the past in order to ensure peace in the future,” said Brammertz.
He concluded with following: “MICT will fulfill its mandate before the end of this year. With this, an important chapter that this Council started 24 years ago will be closed. However, our work on ensuring justice for victims of war crimes that were committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda will be continued,” as announced from the ICTY.
(Source: klix.ba)
