Bosnian Croat faces war crime ruling

Wanted: Karadzic remains at large

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands -- The U.N. war crimes tribunal delivers its first judgement on a leading Bosnian Croat politician on Monday as part of its crackdown on the key figures behind the atrocities.

The three-judge panel will rule on the case against Dario Kordic, a former Bosnian Croat political leader.

They will also pass a decision on the military commander Mario Cerkez.

They both face 22 war crimes counts, including four for crimes against humanity, for ordering attacks against Muslims in central Bosnia from 1991 to 1994.

The trial could serve as a model for cases against non-military figures and is also a test of command responsibility as the tribunal seeks to convict those up the chain of power.

It comes just three days after the tribunal's historic decision to treat rape as a crime against humanity .

Bosnian Serb troops Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac and Zoran Vukovic were sentenced to jail terms of up to 28 years on Friday for using rape as "an instrument of terror" during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

Prosecutors say Kordic was the most powerful political figure in central Bosnia at the time, with a key military role.

He is accused of firing up ethnic hatred and, with Cerkez, of persecuting, detaining and killing the Muslim population.

The indictment says Muslims were driven from their homes as Bosnian Croat forces sought to create an ethnically pure territory to be joined to Croatia.

Prosecutors are focusing on the decision-makers rather than the executioners. Some are already in the tribunal's detention centre, although its most wanted men, the Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, his military commander Ratko Mladic and former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic remain at large.

Prosecutors have called for life sentences, saying the planning of atrocities was collective and both defendants were involved.

"These are events that won't go away. The accused must face them... They were, to use the vernacular, all in it," prosecutor Geoffrey Nice told the court at the end of the 20-month trial.

Defence lawyers said their clients, both aged 40, should be acquitted. Cerkez, brigade commander in part of the Lasva Valley where the atrocities took place, has said he lacked authority when Bosnian Croat forces launched Operation Zone and swept in.

Kordic's lawyers painted him as a tolerant man who was not part of the military chain of command.

British Judge Richard May will read the judgment. It will be the 10th made by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia since it began proceedings in 1996.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Bosnia War Crimes Tribunal
Amnesty International
United Nations

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