DATE=3/24/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=YUGOSLAV WAR CRIMES (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-260552 (CQ)
BYLINE=LAUREN COMITEAU
DATELINE=THE HAGUE
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Judges at the U-N War Crimes Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia have added four-and-a-half years to
the sentence of a commander in the Bosnian Croat army
convicted of mistreating Muslim prisoners under his
care in 1993. Lauren Comiteau reports from The Hague,
where judges called the original sentence manifestly
inadequate and put the man back in jail.
TEXT: This is the second time Zlatko Aleksovski has
stood before judges to be sentenced. Last May, he was
found guilty of physically and mentally abusing
Muslims while commander of the Kaonik prison camp in
central Bosnia in 1993. Judges ruled then that as a
commander, he also failed to prevent or punish the
crimes of his subordinates.
Aleksovski was sentenced to two and a half years in
jail. But judges immediately set him free because
Aleksovski had been in jail for almost three years and
had already served his time.
After nine months of freedom, Aleksovski voluntarily
returned to The Hague from his home in Croatia for his
appeals hearing. Aleksovski had wanted his conviction
overturned, which the judges denied.
But prosecutors had also appealed, arguing that 2 and
a half years was not a harsh enough sentence for the
crime Aleksovski committed. Judges agreed and sent
Aleksovski back to prison.
Judge Richard May explained the reasons.
/// ACT MAY ///
His offenses were not trivial. Instead of
preventing it, the appellant, as a superior,
involved himself in violence against those whom
he should have been protecting, and allowed them
to be subjected to psychological terror. He also
failed to punish those responsible.
/// END ACT ///
/// OPT /// Most importantly, said Judge May,
Aleksovski knowingly risked the lives of prisoners by
selecting them to dig trenches and to be used as human
shields. /// END OPT ///
In increasing his sentence to 7 years, judges said
retribution was a factor - not as revenge, but as an
expression of outrage by the international community.
Upon hearing his sentence, Aleksovski choked back
tears, waving to his wife as he left the courtroom.
She sat in the public gallery quietly crying.
/// OPT /// In an important legal ruling, appeals
judges also overturned an earlier ruling and found
that the conflict between Bosnia and Croatia at the
time the crimes were committed was an international
one. That means the victims of the crimes were
supposed to be protected under the 1949 Geneva
conventions that govern the treatment of civilians
during war. /// END OPT ///
The ruling effectively ends the legal proceedings
against Aleksovski, who will be a free man by the time
he is 45. His is the third case this court has
completed in its 7-year history. (Signed)
NEB/LC/GE/JO
24-Mar-2000 09:33 AM EDT (24-Mar-2000 1433 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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