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Bosnian Commander on Trial
CNews
January 31, 2005
Halilovic, 53, is the highest-ranking Muslim army official to be tried for alleged crimes during the 1992-1995 conflict. He has been accused of senior responsibility for massacres in the villages of Grabovica and Uzdol, Bosnia, in 1993.
A total of 62 people were killed and many of their bodies were dumped in the Neretva River, according to UN prosecutors.
In opening arguments, prosecutors showed amateur video footage of slain children and elderly people allegedly massacred by Halilovic's men.
"The murdered Croat civilians were not combatants, nor were they taking part in military action, nor were they killed as the result of combat," said prosecutor Sureta Chana. "They were either in their beds or were attempting to flee in fear of the fighting."
She named 11 victims in the village of Uzdol, including a 10-year-old boy who had been shot in the back of the head, and several elderly people who had been fleeing. In some cases, their skulls had been smashed and their bodies were partially naked.
All of the 33 victims in the Grabovica incident were civilians, including women, children and the elderly. The youngest, Mladenka Zato, was a girl who was a few weeks shy of her fourth birthday, Chana said.
"The issue in this case is whether the accused failed to take the reasonable and necessary measures that were his legal obligation as a commander to take" to prevent the murders, Chana said. "The prosecution will prove at trial that he did not."
Halilovic, who sat quietly watching the hearings, pleaded not guilty to a single count of murder, classified in the tribunal's statute as a violation of the laws of customs of war. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
The tribunal was established in 1993 to prosecute individual perpetrators of war crimes during a decade of Balkan wars. Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is currently on trial for 66 war crimes counts, including genocide.
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