{"id":48534,"date":"2013-07-08T05:49:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T04:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/judge-claims-us-and-israel-pressed-for-release-of-yugoslav-war-criminals\/48534\/"},"modified":"2013-07-08T05:49:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T04:49:40","slug":"judge-claims-us-and-israel-pressed-for-release-of-yugoslav-war-criminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/judge-claims-us-and-israel-pressed-for-release-of-yugoslav-war-criminals\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge claims US and Israel pressed for release of Yugoslav war criminals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u00a0<\/h3>\n

\n By
\n Paul Mitchell
\n
8 July 2013
\n <\/h5>\n

A top Danish judge sitting on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Frederik Harhoff, claims that the US and Israel pressed for the release of top-ranking Croatian and Serbian officers accused of war crimes.<\/p>\n

Harhoff alleges that ICTY President Theodor Meron, a former legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and former Counsellor on International Law in the US State Department, exerted \u201cpersistent\u201d and \u201cintense\u201d pressure on other judges to recently acquit Croatian general Ante Gotovina and Assistant Interior Minister Mladen Markac, Yugoslav general Momcilo Perisic and Serbian intelligence officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic. Harhoff said their release was contrary to the tribunal\u2019s standard practice of holding military commanders responsible for crimes committed by their subordinates.<\/p>\n

Western powers are concerned that if the standard became enshrined in international law, future military operations would be put in jeopardy and commanders would run the risk of being hauled in front of human rights courts accused of war crimes.<\/p>\n

In a private memo addressed to 56 people, published<\/a> in the Danish newspaper BT<\/em> last month, Harhoff explained that the ICTY had created a \u201cfairly firm legal practice\u201d in relation to the responsibilities of top military chiefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight up until autumn 2012, it has been a more or less set practice at the court that military commanders were held responsible for war crimes that their subordinates committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia from 1992-95, when the Dayton Agreement brought an end to the war in December 1995.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow apparently the commanders must have had a direct intention to commit crimes\u2013and not just knowledge or suspicion that the crimes were or would be committed,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would seem that the military establishment\u201d in leading states such as Israel and the US \u201cfelt that the tribunal was getting too close to top-ranking military commands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harhoff pondered, \u201cHas an Israeli or American official influenced the American President of the tribunal to effect a change of course?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am left with the distinctly unpleasant impression that the tribunal has shifted course as a result of the pressure from \u2018the military establishment\u2019 of certain powerful countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

By authorising the release of convicted criminals it would \u201cin future and in the majority of cases allow the top-ranking person to go free. This means that American (and Israeli) commanders in chief can breathe a sigh of relief\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Harhoff concluded, \u201cThe latest judgements here have brought me before a deep professional and moral dilemma, not previously faced. The worst of it is the suspicion that some of my colleagues have been behind a short-sighted political pressure that completely changes the premises of my work in my service to wisdom and the law.<\/p>\n

US diplomatic cables from 2003 published by WikiLeaks appear to support Harhoff\u2019s claims. They show that Meron was in constant contact with Pierre-Richard Prosper, who served as Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, discussing in depth the work of the ICTY and handing over confidential tribunal documents.<\/p>\n

One describes Meron<\/a> as \u201cthe tribunal\u2019s pre-eminent supporter of United States government efforts,\u201d and how he \u201cresponded positively to Prosper\u2019s detailed explanation of US policy\u201d. Meron was particularly critical of Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who had condemned recent statements made by US officials as \u201ca direct interference in the work of the Tribunal and unacceptable,\u201d and was asking US help in preventing her reappointment.<\/p>\n

In another cable<\/a>, the US was concerned that del Ponte was intending to indict 30 individuals, \u201call at the highest levels,\u201d meaning that \u201cthat the indictees will be at the general or ministerial level or their equivalents (i.e. with respect to the KLA).\u201d The CIA and European intelligence agencies backed the KLA and used it as a proxy to facilitate the plans of the US, using NATO as its military umbrella, to complete the dismemberment of Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n

The publication of Harhoff\u2019s email has created a crisis in the ICTY.<\/p>\n

Last week, current ICTY chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz declared, \u201cI understand the disappointment felt by many, especially survivor communities following the series of recent acquittals mentioned in Judge Harhoff\u2019s letter. My office shares that disappointment.\u201d Brammertz announced that his office is to appeal against the acquittal of Stanisic and Simatovic, and may also request a review of the Gotovina and Markac cases. He refused to comment on Harhoff\u2019s email, saying he was \u201cconcerned about the destructive elements in the debate that has followed the letter\u2019s publication\u201d and that \u201cit is not appropriate or helpful for this office to enter into the debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harhoff\u2019s revelations have also led lawyers for the deceased Bosnian army commander Rasim Delic to request that his three-year jail sentence for the cruel treatment of Serb prisoners be \u201crevised\u201d. They said, \u201cThe publication of Judge Harhoff\u2019s letter has unilaterally brought the reputation of the tribunal into significant disrepute and risks losing public confidence in the tribunal\u2019s work\u2026It is therefore the responsibility of the appeal\u2019s chamber to rectify the fallout committed as a result of Judge Harhoff\u2019s appearance of bias.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of Balkan human rights organisations have also written to United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon calling for an investigation into Harhoff\u2019s claims, declaring, \u201cWithout such an enquiry… doubts about the fairness of ICTY judgments will permanently mar the work of this important institution of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in 2001, the WSWS warned<\/a>, \u201cThe attempt to present the ICTY as a \u2018first step\u2019 towards a permanent court to punish the perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses does not stand up to examination.\u201d It explained that the main instigator of the ICTY was the US, which consistently opposed the universal application of human rights laws, refusing to recognise the creation of the International Criminal Court unless its military forces were exempted from the jurisdiction of the proposed body.<\/p>\n

It explained how US and European policy of dismembering Yugoslavia set the stage for a series of bloody civil wars, whose legacy was the creation of a series of mini-states, in which the Western powers exercise untrammelled economic and political control. The function of the ICTY was to provide a legal veneer for this predatory imperialist policy.<\/p>\n

The author also recommends:<\/em> <\/p>\n

Croatian war criminals released after appeal by Western military chiefs
<\/a>[11 December 2012]<\/span><\/p>\n


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Republished with permission from: World Socialist Web Site<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 By Paul Mitchell 8 July 2013 A top Danish judge sitting on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Frederik Harhoff, claims that the US and Israel pressed for the release of top-ranking Croatian and Serbian officers accused of war crimes. Harhoff alleges that ICTY President Theodor Meron, a former legal counsel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-48534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}