Search results

Sinan Morina is an ethnic Kosovo Albanian and was a member of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the non-international armed conflict between the KLA, on one side, and the police and military units of the SFR Yugoslavia, on the other. He was charged with participating, together with 34 members of KLA, in the killing of nine Serbian men, expulsion, imprisonment, torture and rape of Serbian civilians, and large-scale destruction of civilian property and religious objects (Orthodox churches St. Spas and St. Nikola) in the village of Opteruša between 17 and 21 July 1998. The purpose of this armed attack was to ethnically cleanse the area from all non-Albanian population and create an ethnically pure Albanian territory.

Morina was acquitted by the Belgrade District Court on 20 December 2007 due to lack of credible evidence. The Supreme Court of Serbia reversed the verdict of the War Crimes Court in 2009 and ordered a re-trial. He was arrested in Croatia on 24 February 2010 following an international arrest warrant issued by the Serbian authorities.

Ilija Jurišić was a member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina police reserve forces as well as a high-ranking commander in the Tuzla-based State Security Operational Centre. Later, Jurišić exercised control over all armed troops deployed over the territory of Tuzla. In the latter function, Jurišić allegedly ordered his subordinates to attack a column of soldiers of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army (JNA) on 5 May 1992, while this convoy had just started to withdraw from Tuzla. As a result of this attack, at least 92 JNA soldiers were killed and more than 30 others were injured.

The Prosecutor v. Ratko Mladić case before the ICTY concerns the events which occurred from October 1991 to November 1995 in the former Republic of Yugoslavia. The conflicts in the former Republic of Yugoslavia have been estimated to be the cause of a death toll of approximately 100,000 people, leading to over 2,000,000 people being displaced. The present case was tried before the ICTY’s Trial Chamber I, and the victims of the crimes were the ethnic groups of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats residing in the targeted municipalities, U.N personnel, and residents of Sarajevo.  

At the time when these events occurred, Mr. Mladić was a Commander of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) Main Staff in the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), including Srebrenica. In his leadership position, Mr. Mladić took control of municipalities in the so-called Serbian Republic of BiH, mainly in the Northwestern and Eastern regions of BiH. In these municipalities, the Bosnian Serb Forces participated in a campaign of persecution to drive the non-Serb populations from these territories, aiming to create an ethnically pure Bosnian Serb State by territorially dividing BiH. 

Mr. Mladić was initially charged together with Mr. Karadžić; however, the judgement in the case of Mr. Mladić was delivered a year later than that of Mr. Karadžić. Mr. Mladić was indicted for 11 charges, 10 of which he was found guilty of, including several charges of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war, and one charge of genocide. The Chamber sentenced Mr. Mladić to life imprisonment.

Veiz Bjelić was born on 12 September 1949 in Vlasenica. In the period from June 1992 to 26 January 1993, he was a prison guard in the “Štala” prison where Serb civilians and members of the armed forces who no longer participated in the fighting, were detained. During that time, Bjelić repeatedly raped one female person and threatened to kill her if she would tell it to someone. He also led soldiers of the Territorial Defence of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to enter the prison, where they subsequently abused Serb civilians both physically and mentally.

Bjelić was found guilty on 28 March 2003 and was sentenced to six years imprisonment.