Former Yugoslav Army chief Momcilo Perisic stood straight, eyes downcast as he listened to Judge Bakone Moloto sentence him to 27 years in prison. Proclaiming him guilty of a long list of war crimes and crimes against humanity over his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre when around 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed. Also, over the 44-month Siege of Sarajevo which made daily life almost impossible for civilians.

By Geraldine Coughlan in The Hague

Tweet

The judge said that the army “regularly made no distinction between civilian and military targets. In fact, it targeted Bosnian Muslim civilians as a matter of course”.

Historic
The judgement is the first handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) against an official of the former Yugoslav Army for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Perisic is the most high-ranking official of the former army to be convicted by the Tribunal. You could feel tension rise in the public gallery as one of the court’s most historic trials came to a close.

Bosnia and Croatia
The judge meticulously read out the list of crimes including aiding and abetting murder, persecution and attacks on civilians.

Perisic was also found guilty of failing to punish his troops for their crimes of murder and attacks on civilians during the rocket attacks on Zagreb in 1995.

Milosevic's help
Momcilo Perisic was army chief during the rule of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

The judges found that he helped Belgrade provide personnel, weapons, cash and logistical help to the Bosnian Serb and Croatian Serb armies.

Perisic made soldiers of the Yugoslav army available to Serb forces in Bosnia for the siege of Sarajevo, as well as to the self-proclaimed Croatian Serb enclave of Krajina, the judgement says.

But the court acquitted him of aiding and abetting extermination as a crime against humanity in Srebrenica and of command responsibility in relation to crimes in Sarajevo and Srebrenica.

Waging war - not a crime
What's interesting here is Judge Moloto's dissenting opinion, which points out the basic legal premise that the 'waging of war' is not a crime.

He disagrees with the other two judges that Perisic was individually responsible for aiding and abetting crimes under Article 7(1) of the Tribunal's Statute. 

Moloto says by providing assistance to the Bosnian Serb army, Perisic was "too remote" from the crimes committed, to qualify as aiding and abetting.

He said providing assistance to the Bosnian Serb army to wage war "cannot be equated with aiding and abetting crimes committed during such war."

To conclude otherwise "is to criminalise the waging of war which is not a crime under the Statute of the Tribunal," states Moloto.

Cut-off line?
The judge raises the question many are asking today, particularly in relation to the suppply of arms to Libyan rebels - where is the cut-off line?

For instance, "would a manufacturer who supplies an army with weapons which are then used to commit crimes during a war also be criminally responsible?" asks Moloto.   

In finding Perisic guilty of aiding and abetting crimes, then "all military and political leaders , who on the basis of circumstantial evidence are found to provide assistance to a foreign army can meet the objective element of aiding and abetting," Moloto concludes.  

Acquittal
While Momcilo Perisic was found criminally responsible for crimes in Sarajevo and Srebrenica, he was found not guilty as superior under Article 7(3) of the ICTY Statue in relation to these crimes and extermination.

The evidence did not establish beyond reasonable doubt that there was a superior-subordinate relationship between him and perpetrators of the crimes committed in Sarajevo and Srebrenica.

The judges found it could not be established that General Perisic could have foreseen, based on his knowledge of the Bosnian Serb army’s prior conduct, that it would engage in the systematic extermination of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica.

It acquitted him of aiding and abetting extermination as crime against humanity in Srebrenica.

One of the last
Perisic voluntarily surrendered to the court in March 2005, less than a month after he was named in one of the Tribunal’s last indictments. He pleaded not guilty.

Some of his subordinates have already been tried by the ICTY, including Bosnian Serb general Stanislav Galic, who received a life sentence on appeal in 2006 for overseeing the campaign of terror in Sarajevo.

Life sentence
The prosecution had demanded a life sentence for Perisic; the defence, an acquittal.

Momcilo Perisic is 67 years old. For him, 27 years is a life sentence. He packs his briefcase resignedly, UN guard at his side. The courtroom scrolls down its electric curtain.

From the gallery, one gets the impression he has nothing to lose - but place hope in an appeal against his conviction.