‘Terminally-ill' Bosnian Serb general serving life for genocide seeks release from prison
Lawyers for former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, serving life imprisonment for genocide, have asked a UN court to release him on 'humanitarian grounds' – claiming he has a terminal medical condition and just months to live.
Mladic (83) – known during the Yugoslav war as the Butcher of Bosnia – was found guilty in 2017 of extermination, murder, persecution and forcible transfer in connection with the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the 'safe haven' of Srebrenica in July 1995.
He was also convicted of directing the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in which almost 14,000 people died. It lasted a year longer than the siege of Stalingrad and was the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.
Mladic's application for early release lodged with judges at the international court in The Hague by his long-time legal team, Dragan Ivetic and Branko Lukic, comes just weeks before the 30th anniversary commemoration of the Srebrenica atrocities, on July 11th.
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According to a motion lodged last week with the court and now publicly available on its website, Mladic has been moved to palliative care at the UN detention centre a few kilometres from the court, and has just 'months to live'.
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Although the details of his medical condition are redacted from the motion as it appears on the court's website, it is known that Mladic has suffered two strokes and a heart attack in recent years while incarcerated.
The former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska also had a pacemaker fitted at a Dutch hospital in 2023. However, his condition continues to deteriorate and since then, his kidneys have failed.
'Given Mladic's incurable condition and his short life expectancy, continued detention serves no legitimate purpose, and amounts to inhumane treatment and punishment,' the motion reads.
As well as saving the UN detention centre the cost of palliative care, his lawyers argue, early release would allow Mladic to explore all his medical options, so as to live out the remaining months of his life with his family.
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Inside Srebrenica: old scars, new wounds
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Mladic's son, Darko, said he had spoken to two doctors on the UN medical team who confirmed the terminal diagnosis. 'Our Serbian doctors share the opinion that he has very little chance of surviving until the end of this year,' he added.
Mladic was convicted and sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
This has largely completed its work and has been subsumed into the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), also in The Hague.
The motion is listed on the IRMCT website as an 'urgent defence motion'.
However, there is no indication of when the court will rule.
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RTÉ News
2 hours ago
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'Die trying to live' - Survivor on Srebrenica genocide
A commemoration will be held in Dublin today to mark the 30th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia Herzegovina, where more than 8,000 men and boys were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces. The murderous rampage happened within an area which had been designated by the United Nations to be a "safe haven". Paul Cunningham, who first reported from the war in Bosnia Herzegovina in 1993, tells the story of one man who survived the genocide, but whose four brothers were killed. The moment Hajrudin Mesić realised the genocidal intention of the Bosnian Serb Army, and its feared militias, was late one night as he hid in bushes, exhausted and starving, in the middle of nowhere. This was July 1995. Hajrudin was part of a column of men who were trying to flee from Srebrenica, which had just fallen to Bosnian Serb forces, and reach the safety of government-controlled territory roughly 70km away. The men were mostly Bosnian Muslims, but who defined themselves as Bosniaks - people who believed in a multi-ethnic state. Their column was being pursued relentlessly by their enemy through the forests. Sometimes the Bosnian Serb forces donned UN uniforms in order to trick those fleeing into coming out of hiding. Other times the Bosnian Serb forces pretended to be government officers and used loudhailers to appeal for people to come into the open. One man in Hajrudin's column - maybe believing the appeals or just exhausted from the trek - walked down to a Bosnian Serb militia and begged for his life. As Hajrudin looked on in horror, one militia member took out his knife and said, just before killing him: "We didn't come here to negotiate with you - we came here to end things with you, once and for all." Hajrudin did not need to think anymore. He recounted: "This is when I realised that they would kill everyone. At about 2 or 3am, I decided to run. "I felt it was better to die trying to live, than await execution." Hajrudin's grim hunch proved to be right. Back in Srebrenica and its surrounding villages, and with UN peacekeepers having scuttled back to their barracks, the head of Bosnian Serb forces General Ratko Mladić was unleashing his murderous plans. As women and children were handed sweets and bread for the cameras, before being bussed out, his troops shot dead thousands upon thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys over 10 blood-soaked days. Mladić had a pathological hatred of Bosnian Muslims and had been ethnically cleansing them from the territory he controlled - a tactic he was only able to implement with the covert support of President of Serbia Slobodan Milošević. Hajrudin had ended up in Srebrenica because his village had been shelled by Bosnian Serb forces and the surviving members of his family were compelled to flee. "On the worst day of bombardment, 76 people - almost a quarter of the population - were killed in one day," he said. Video taken at Srebrenica, on the day the town fell, later became public. It showed General Mladić walking triumphantly through the streets and he could be heard describing the local population as "Turks" - an insult he regularly used. It was a reference that many Bosnian Muslims were descendants of the Ottoman Empire, which had occupied much of the territory in the 15th century. The context of Mladić's video was chilling, he said directly to the camera that "the time has come to take revenge on the Turks in this region". Srebrenica – named after its ancient silver mines - was a strategic town in eastern Bosnia Herzegovina. It was held by Bosniaks loyal to the government in Sarajevo, but quickly surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces when war broke out in 1992. It had been designated as a "safe haven" by the United Nations Security Council in April 1993, but the lightly armed and continuously undersupplied Dutch peacekeepers could not prevent the tightening of the Bosnian Serb siege. The truth was that the "safe haven" was never safe, just like the other towns and cities, given the designation the following month. This included Sarajevo, Žepa, Goražde and Bihać. By July 1995, after NATO bombers had been called back to their bases without having taken any military action, General Mladić decided to deploy the necessary forces to take over Srebrenica and take his genocidal "revenge". The world sat on its hands and looked on. Hajrudin was just 21-years-old when he fled Srebrenica and made his onerous bid for survival. "It got to the point where I just didn't trust anyone and the paranoia was intense," he said. Small wonder given that over the previous three years, one of his brothers had been shot dead by a Bosnian Serb sniper while another had been eviscerated by a Bosnian Serb artillery shell. Hajrudin had fled Srebrenica in the company of another brother, but they lost each other in the forest. Hajrudin learned later that he had died from a rocket or an artillery shell - his third brother to be killed at the hands of the marauding Bosnian Serb forces. He said: "I was [now] in a specific state of mind where I was living from one minute to the next. "I didn't think about anything beyond that … I'm an optimist by nature and faith that I would get through it." His 17-day escape to safety was slow and tortuous. "We were exhausted and the pain from hunger was horrible. If I sat down, I would dream of food," he said. Bosnian Serb forces deployed dogs to try and locate the Bosniaks. Hajrudin could hear their barks as the search teams got closer and closer but, thankfully, they faded away. His lowest ebb came when his group thought they had crossed into government-held territory but, in reality, they had had walked into the hell of an ambush. Gripping two precious pears he had found, Hajrudin came under fire at a destroyed village and he jumped into a trench, somehow managing to accidentally slash his throat in the process. They were being targeted from multiple directions. He recalled: "I managed to crawl out of the trench, but three of my friends were trapped inside. "One was a 17-year-old boy who was wounded and could not get out. The second asked for a gun to kill himself. "The third was wounded and clearly dying. The [Bosnian] Serb soldiers started approaching, but my dying friend created a distraction, giving me the chance to escape." Hajrudin's final hurdle involved passing through two Serb lines and evading a mobile patrol before finally making it to safety. "My parents treated my arrival like a gift from heaven," he said, adding "I will never forget the moment I saw my mum again and my father was seriously ill at the time, but seeing he had at least one son gave him a reason to live". Hajrudin's fourth brother, who also fled Srebrenica, did not make it to safety. He was buried in 2003 after his remains were located finally in a minefield. Apart from the anguish of losing four brothers, Hajruddin also was also gripped by an unquenchable rage. He told me that Bosniaks initially placed "great hopes" that the international community would protect them but, he added, they were "ultimately betrayed". "The actions of the international community helped the executioners, encouraged them," he said. It took another massacre, a mortar attack on a Sarajevo market which killed more than 40 people, before NATO-led airstrikes commenced on Bosnian Serb positions encircling the capital. The delayed military action is something Hajrudin still does not understand today. He said: "One cannot help but wonder why it took so long for international intervention to take place shortly after the fall of Srebrenica." When NATO planes undertook their bombing missions, Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladić went into hiding - in Serbia. For years, he was protected and concealed by the Serbian military but, ultimately, his power waned. In 2011, it all came crashing down when he was arrested in Lazarevo, northern Serbia, and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. In 2017, Mladić was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war. He remains in jail. It was an outcome which, Hajrudin feels, was of "little consolation for the victims of genocide". That is in no small part due to the fact that Bosnian Serb forces killed four of his brothers. He said: "I was the only one who survived the genocide, although my survival is a miracle, namely that they intended to kill me too, but they failed. "I guess someone had to survive and spread the truth. "Srebrenica is my open wound that will never heal. Often, I dream and relive those nightmarish scenes. "The hardest thing is when July comes, and the commemorations begin. "Afterwards, I don't know if I'm better or worse. Every time I tell my personal story, I relive it all over again." He credits his religious beliefs for helping him withstand the horror inflicted on him, his family and wider community. Hajrudin feels he "must not lose optimism because that would be capitulation, which the perpetrators of genocide would be very happy about". He also feels there is an obligation on him to speak and commemorate. "As one of the rare survivors, I must be supportive of all those who might give up and giving up is never an option," he said. "Today, many of the survivors are successful athletes, doctors, professors - scattered across the world's meridians and parallels - always trying to make the world around them better," he added. To an extent, Hajrudin has fulfilled his own dream – he is the teacher he always wanted to be and lives in Sarajevo with his wife and children. But the anger has not dissipated. "After Srebrenica, the world said 'never again'. Unfortunately, as so many times, that 'never again' has been forgotten," he said. He cites Gaza as an example of that. "Today we live in a world that is rushing towards moral collapse by closing both eyes to the genocide in Gaza, the suffering in Sudan and many other places," he said. It also hurts that Srebrenica, today, remains under the control of the Bosnian Serb entity, called Republika Srpska, which has been led by its ultra-nationalist leader Milorad Dodik - a person who falsely claims there was not a genocide. Hajrudin said: "The peace agreement rewarded the aggressors and the policy of apartheid, sacrificing the Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina. "The consequences of such an approach are still felt today. "So, the victim was punished again and the perpetrators of genocide were rewarded." Last year, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the Srebrenica genocide, designating 11 July as the "International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica". It also declared that it should be observed annually. But the vote was not straight forward - Serbia's President Aleksandar Vučić opposed the motion. The man whose political career began in 1993 with the far-right Serbian Radical Party, called on "everyone" in the UN General Assembly to oppose the designation, claiming it was "highly politicised". However, the resolution was adopted. It includes a provision which condemns any denial of the Srebrenica genocide as a historical event and any actions that glorify those convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Dáil will commemorate the Srebrenica genocide, with TDs observing a minute's silence on 10 July 10.
RTÉ News
2 hours ago
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Who is going to inspect Iran's nuclear sites now?
While Israel, Iran and the United States fought their 12-day war, a row broke out between Tehran and the UN's nuclear watchdog, casting doubt on future independent oversight of Iran's nuclear programme and raising fears that global non-proliferation guardrails could begin to crumble. On Wednesday, the Iranian parliament voted to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and kick its nuclear inspectors out of the country. The measure needs approval by the country's supreme leaders to go ahead. But at the same time, Iran is considering withdrawing from the UN's Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). If that happens, it would no longer be under any obligation to comply with international nuclear safeguards (although it would certainly face more sanctions, at the very least). That would have a chilling effect on global efforts to stem the spread of nuclear weapons, analysts have told RTÉ News, and is likely prompt other countries to quit too. "There is a real risk Iran could withdraw from the NPT and weaken the treaty," Alistair Burnett, spokesperson for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said, "as Saudi Arabia could follow suit, given its concerns over Tehran's nuclear programme". Asked during a news conference this week about Iran's possible withdrawal from the long-standing treaty, Rafael Grossi, director General of the IAEA, said it would be "very regrettable". "I don't think this would help anybody, starting with Iran. This would lead to isolation, all sorts of problems," he said. He added it would lead to "serious erosion" in the world's nuclear non-proliferation architecture. At the heart of this dispute is Tehran's perception that the UN's nuclear watchdog is not impartial – an accusation strenuously denied by UN officials. It began when the IAEA passed a resolution declaring Iran to be in breach of its obligations under the NPT on 12 June. The watchdog also reported that Iran had a stockpile of 140kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity, a step towards weapons grade. A day later, Israel bombed Iran's nuclear and military sites. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a "pre-emptive" strike to stop Iran building a nuclear bomb, from which he said Iran was just "weeks away". In remarks following the attacks, Mr Grossi said his agency had not found evidence to suggest there was "a systematic effort" by Iran to manufacture a nuclear weapon. But Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei took to social media to accuse Mr Grossi of being too late. "You obscured this truth in your absolutely biased report," Mr Baqaei wrote on X. The resolution was used as a pretext "to wage a war of aggression on Iran and to launch an unlawful attack on our peaceful nuclear facilities," he wrote. As the US administration mulled joining the war, Vice President JD Vance also referenced the IAEA report. "They've been found in violation of their non-proliferation obligations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is hardly a right-wing organization," Mr Vance posted on X on 17 June. Five days later, the US bombed Iran's nuclear sites at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow. And Iranian officials continued to direct their ire towards the IAEA. In a scathing attack delivered during remarks to the UN Security Council during an emergency session last weekend, Iran's ambassador to the UN accused Mr Grossi of "biased conduct". "Undoubtedly, the United States, the United Kingdom and France - three permanent members of this Council - along with the Israeli regime and the IAEA General Director, will bear full responsibility for the death of innocent civilians in Iran, especially women and children, and for the destruction of vital civilian infrastructure," Amir Saeid Iravani told the 15-member body. The Iranian envoy also filed a formal complaint to the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary General against Mr Grossi for "a clear and serious breach of the standard of impartiality". Mr Grossi insisted the IAEA was objective and impartial and said the idea that its reporting on Iran's nuclear facilities was a greenlight for military action was "absolutely absurd". For years, the IAEA sent weapons inspectors into Tehran's nuclear sites to check if Iran was complying with its NPT obligations. Additional layers of inspection included CCTV surveillance at key locations, tamper-proof seals and collection of dust and residue for analysis. Access was significantly scaled back after the US withdrew from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), known as the Iran nuclear deal, and re-imposed sanctions on Iran in 2018. At that time, the first Trump administration accused Iran of lying about its nuclear programme and said the JCPOA "enriched the Iranian regime and enabled its malign behaviour". Now, as Iran's animosity towards the IAEA rises, the question is whether any international oversight of Iran's nuclear programme can continue at all. "It's always harder to do the inspection job of the IAEA if the host country is not hospitable," Erin Dumbacher, nuclear security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations told RTÉ News. Any country in possession of nuclear material even for energy or medical purposes should be allowing inspectors in, to build the international transparency and credibility of their nuclear programmes, she said. "You only need three to 5% enrichment of your materials to use it for energy purposes," she said. "So, any country that has any enrichment capabilities or materials that are enriched beyond that low level need to explain its purpose, so that we can all be confident that there are not additional weapon states looming," she said. If Iran were to withdraw from the NPT now, it would certainly undermine confidence throughout the region about Iran's nuclear activities, she told RTÉ News. Of course, not all countries have agreed to nuclear non-proliferation. Israel is an undeclared nuclear power but not a signatory to the NPT, and therefore not subject to inspections by the IAEA. India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers and South Sudan, which is not, never signed. North Korea's withdrawal from the treaty in 2003 - the only country to do so - preceded its first nuclear test in 2006. "If other countries think Iran is following that example, we are likely to see more Israeli and US attacks and even tougher sanctions on Tehran – and more conflict is the last thing we want to see in the region," said Mr Burnett. The danger now, analysts said, is that following the events of the past few weeks, countries may decide that an atomic weapon is the best protection against external aggression, blowing apart the NPT and raising the spectre of a new nuclear arms race. "I worry that recent events might have a chilling effect on a threshold state or a state that might be sort of "hedging", to use the political science term for it," said Ms Dumbacher. "They might not see as much value in international transparency and in working with the IAEA," she added.
RTÉ News
17 hours ago
- RTÉ News
EU plans to buy carbon credits to meet climate targets
The European Commission is set to propose counting carbon credits bought from other countries towards the European Union's 2040 climate target, a commission document seen by Reuters shows. The commission is due to propose a legally binding EU climate target for 2040 on 2 July. The EU executive had initially planned a 90% net emissions cut, against 1990 levels, but in recent months has sought to make this goal more flexible. This in response to pushback from governments, including Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic, concerned about the cost. An internal commission summary of the upcoming proposal, seen by Reuters, said the EU would be able to use "high quality international credits" from a UN-backed carbon credits market to meet 3% of the emissions cuts towards the 2040 goal. The document said the credits would be phased in from 2036 and that additional EU legislation would later set out the origin and quality criteria that the credits must meet alongside details of how they would be purchased. The move would in effect ease the emissions cuts - and the investments required - from European industries needed to hit the 90% emissions cutting target. For the share of the target met by credits, the EU would buy "credits" from projects that reduce CO2 emissions abroad - for example, forest restoration in Brazil - rather than reducing emissions in Europe. Proponents say these credits are a crucial way to raise funds for CO2 cutting projects in developing nations. But recent scandals have shown some credit generating projects did not deliver the climate benefits they claimed. The document said the commission will add other flexibilities to the 90% target, as Brussels attempts to contain resistance from governments struggling to fund the green transition alongside priorities including defence and industries - who say ambitious environmental regulations impede their competitiveness. These include integrating credits from projects that remove CO2 from the atmosphere into the EU's carbon market so that European industries can buy these credits to offset some of their own emissions, the document said. The draft would also give countries more flexibility on which sectors in their economy do the heavy lifting to meet the 2040 goal, "to support the achievement of targets in a cost-effective way". A commission spokesperson declined to comment on the upcoming proposal, which could still change before it is published next week.
