NETHERLANDS: Former leader of Bosnia's Muslim army Roman Delic goes on trial at Hague

The former leader of Bosnia's Muslim army has gone on trial at the Hague. Rasim Delic is charged with failing to punish alleged atrocities committed by foreign fighters under his command. The former leader of Bosnia's Muslim army, Rasim Delic, went on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal on Monday (July 9) charged with responsibility for rape, torture and murder of Bosnian Croats and Serbs by his troops. Prosecutors had at first refused to begin the trial after a row with judges, saying they were not being allowed to question enough witnesses, but then decided to proceed after all. Delic is charged with failing to punish alleged atrocities committed by Islamic foreign fighters or "mujahideen" under his command, and of having been aware of their propensity for violence. Many Islamic fighters, or "mujahideen", came from North Africa and the Middle East to support fellow Muslims during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. They moved from giving out food to local Muslims to fighting alongside their forces. "Crimes for which Rasim Delic is accused for, according to the Prosecution's allegations, are mostly done by voluntary soldiers of Afro-Asian origin, who fought as a part of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian Army in a platoon called El-Mudjahed," said ICTY spokesman Refik Hodzic. Delic's indictment details an occasion when mujahideen indiscriminately shot dead 24 captured Bosnian Croats outside the village of Maline in June 1993. It also alleges that in 1995 a captured Bosnian Serb soldier was beheaded in a prison camp and all other Serb prisoners were forced to kiss the severed head, which the mujahideen then placed on a hook in the room where prisoners were held. 58-year old Delic is one of a handful of Bosnian Muslims to stand trial in The Hague for alleged war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Most accused are Serbs, but the court has indicted senior figures from all three Bosnian ethnic groups. Bosnia's Muslims and Croats began the war as allies against the Serbs but then fought each other for territory. Prosecutors had unsuccessfully sought a last-minute suspension of the trial and its transfer to a Bosnian court after the tribunal judges limited the amount of time to hear prosecution witnesses, as the court came under pressure to wind up its work by 2010. Judges have said they may call 55 witnesses of the 91 originally requested, but prosecutors argue this limits the scope of the trial and makes The Hague, where those charged with the greatest responsibility are tried, an inappropriate venue. Delic surrendered to the tribunal in February 2005, and had been given provisional release before he was recalled into custody in The Hague last month.

ITN Source | July 10, 2007

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