Monday, August 24, 2009

Bosnian Judiciary Shields Muslim War Criminals from Due Processes





Bosnian Muslim wartime leader, war criminal Alija Izmetbegović visiting the El Mujahideen unit

http://de-construct.net/e-zine/?p=7504

“As long as Bosnia’s War Crimes Prosecution is dominated by David Schwendiman [PDF], not a single Bosnian Muslim general will find himself in the docket, regardless of the evidence proving their responsibility for war crimes committed by the Bosnian Muslim forces against the Serb population,” Dževad Galijašević, member of the South-Eastern Europe’s Expert Team for the War Against Terrorism and Organized Crime, told Banja Luka daily Fokus.

Born into the Muslim faith, former mayor of Maglaj Municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina Galijašević is one of the very few Bosnian Muslims willing to openly speak about the wide scale war crimes committed by the Izetbegović’s troops in former Yugoslavia.

Author of three books, including The Era of Terrorism in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Galijašević asserts that Alija Izetbegović’s Islamic Declaration “laid the cornerstone for the mujahidin to come to wartime and postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina”.

He stresses that the current Islamic political leadership of Bosnia are the “same people who during the war sent pleas to the Taliban and other Islamic regimes to send their best jihad fighters to Bosnia to fight the Christians”. After the war has ended, the response of these leaders to anyone who would bring up the fact of war crimes committed by the Bosnian Muslims is that only the foreign fighters are responsible for war crimes on the Muslim side and none of the natives.

This, says Galijašević, couldn’t be further from the truth.

Mountain of Evidence of Atif Dudaković’s Atrocities Insufficient to Get him Before the Court

Speaking to Fokus reporter, Galijašević said that commander of the Fifth Corps of the Bosnian Muslim army, general Atif Dudaković is the prime example of the double standards practiced by the Bosnian Muslim leadership and foreign officials running Bosnian war crimes prosecution department.

Dudaković is accused of war crimes committed in the region of the municipalities of Bihać, Sanski Most, Bosanski Petrovac and Prijedor, and (together with Alija Izetbegović, Croat war leader Franjo Tuđman and Croat general Ante Gotovina) for war crimes committed during the joint Croat-Muslim ethnic cleansing Operation “Storm” in 1995, on the territory of the municipalities of Jajince, Šipovo, Mrkonjić Grad and parts of the municipalities of Banja Luka, Ključ and Drvar.

Izetbegović’s general, trumpeted as a “revered wartime commander”, stands accused of grievous war crimes which include wanton destruction of Serb-populated villages, execution of the civilians, murder of the Bosnian Muslim negotiators (non-allied with Izetbegović’s war party) and torture and execution of the POWs (on a number of occasions, many of which have been videotaped and preserved on some 30 DVDs).


Sarajevo regime announced its planned jihad against the Serb population of Bosnia well ahead of the war, in October 1991: Cover of the New Vox magazine showing rosy-cheeked Bosnian Muslim fascist with severed heads of prominent Serbs (his boot on severed head of President Radovan Karadžić), with titles “Handzar [SS Waffen] Division Ready” (on the left) and “The Fourth Reich is Coming: Welcome!”

He is also responsible of running one of the Bosnian death camps for Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims non-allied with Izetbegović’s jihadists, where prisoners were regularly tortured, mutilated and executed.

NATO court in Hague was not interested in processing high ranking Bosnian Muslim wartime commander for the crimes committed by one of the favored parties in Yugoslav civil wars. As for the Bosnian war crimes prosecution, even as the evidence of Dudaković’s atrocities kept piling up, it limited itself to indicting Dudaković’s subordinate in 2007 — based on the same video recordings that are incriminating Dudaković — but not his savage commander. Instead, Sarajevo prosecution allegedly “opened an investigation” of Dudaković’s crimes, which hasn’t moved an inch in more than two years, leaving Dudaković free to roam Bosnia and enjoy his life of impunity.

Bosnian Muslim Commander in Charge of El Mujahideen Savages Still Free

In addition to Dudaković, the case of general Sakib Mahmuljin, wartime commander of the Third Corps of Bosnian Muslim army which incorporated the atrocious El Mujahideen unit (El Mujahid, in some sources) also remains open, Galijašević said, adding the Hague Tribunal had established that El Mujahideen unit, comprised of thousands of foreign mercenaries and responsible for countless atrocities against the Serb and Croat population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was under direct command and control of the Bosnian Muslim Third Corps, led by Mahmuljin.

“In its verdict to Enver Hadžihasanović and Amir Kubura, the Hague Tribunal determined El Mujahideen unit was an integral part of the Bosnian Muslim army from 13 September 1993. Since then, the El Mujahideen unit was a legal military formation in the composition of the Bosnian Muslim army, operating within its Third Corps. This implies full responsibility of Sakib Mahmuljin for all the war crimes committed by this unit, some of which were documented in the verdict issued to Rasim Delić [wartime commander of Main Staff of the Bosnian Muslim army],” Galijašević said.

He added that Internal Affairs Ministry of the Serbian Republic in Bosnia processed a number of cases in which Sakib Mahmuljin’s direct responsibility for these atrocities was proven beyond the reasonable doubt.

According to Galijašević, the key person responsible for freezing the processing of war crimes committed by the Bosnian Muslims is David Schwendiman, former Utah Assistant United States Attorney, currently employed at Sarajevo War Crimes Prosecution Department.

NATO Court Declined to Process High Ranking Bosnian Muslim War Criminals

Branislav Dukić, head of the Republic of Srpska Association of Prisoners of War Camps, said the Association submitted in 2003 to Carla Del Ponte, Hague’s ex-chief prosecutor, over 300 cases involving some 7,000 Bosnian Muslims and Croats who have committed crimes against the Serb population in Bosnia. The case of Sakib Mahmuljin is among those 300 cases.

“In October 2004 the cases were returned to the Bosnia-Herzegovina prosecution. Two years later, we had seven meetings with Schwendiman, who promised this case will also be processed, but nothing has happened until this day,” Dukić said.

He announced the Association of Prisoners of War Camps will block the state court and prosecution at the end of the month, because of their continual evasion of processing the war crimes committed by the Bosnian Muslims.

Republic of Srpska protesters will be joined by the Bosnian Croats.

“We shall organize peaceful protests together with Republika Srpska Association of Prisoners of War Camps, in order to point out that Bosnia and Herzegovina judiciary works solely to the advantage of Bosnian Muslims”, head of Croatia Libertas NGO Leo Pločkinić said, adding that “Bosnian Muslims who have committed monstrous crimes against Serbs and Croats in 1992-1995 war are freely strolling Bosnia”.

“We intend to send a message to the international community that, if they wish to have Bosnia and Herzegovina, everyone who committed war crimes must face justice, including Bosnian Muslims, who were committing atrocities against the Serbian and Croat population,” Dukić said, adding that they will once again request a meeting with Bosnia’s chief prosecutor Milorad Barašanin and David Schwendiman, who have refused to meet with the Association representatives on four occasions.

Serb and Croat NGOs in Bosnia Request Serbian and Croatian States to Process Bosnian Muslim War Criminals

In the meantime, Dukić’s Association and Croatia Libertas have submitted requests to the state prosecution offices of Serbia and Croatia for opening an investigation against the members of the Bosnian Muslim forces who committed war crimes against the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia from 1992-1995.

“According to the documents in our possession, which we submitted to the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution, mujahideens committed war crimes against the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then in Kosovo and Metohija province,” Dukić said.

He reminded that the Hague Tribunal determined in two of the issued verdicts that Bosnian Muslims are responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed on the Bosnian territory during the war.

Bosnian-based Croatia Libertas submitted similar request to the Croatian state prosecution.

“Croatia Libertas submitted around one hundred bills to Croatia’s chief prosecutor Mladen Bajić, half of which are the charges of war crimes Bosnian Muslims committed against the Croats”, Leo Pločkinić told Serbian news agency Tanjug.

Both Dukić and Pločkinić expressed utter distrust towards the Bosnian judiciary which, as they said, when it comes to war crimes, hounds only Serbs and Croats, while Bosnian Muslims are decidedly shielded from the obligation to face justice for their deeds.

So far, Bosnian state court has issued combined prison terms to the Serbs charged before them in the length of 1,118 years, 146 years to the Croats and 41 years in total for all the Bosnian Muslims who were made to stand the trial before the Bosnian court.

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