UN WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL TO HOLD SECOND HEARING IN SARAJEVO

UN WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL TO HOLD SECOND HEARING IN SARAJEVO New York, Feb 6 2008 5:00PM The United Nations tribunal set up to try those responsible for the worst war crimes committed in the Balkans in the 1990s will travel to Sarajevo – a city synonymous with the conflict – on Friday for a four-day hearing in the trial of the former head of the Bosnian Muslim forces during the Balkan wars.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (<"http://www.un.org/icty/">ICTY), which is based in The Hague, has <"http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2008/pr1214e.htm">scheduled an evidentiary hearing in the trial of Rasim Deli&#263; after a request from prosecutors.

It is only the second time that the Tribunal has conducted a hearing away from its seat in the Netherlands; the other occasion occurred in September last year during the same case.

The hearing, which will be held in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, will involve testimony from Aiman Awad, the final prosecution witness in the Deli&#263; trial.

Mr. Deli&#263;, 59, is charged with murder, cruel treatment and rape of captured Croat and Serb soldiers and civilians on the basis of his responsibility as Commander of the Main Staff of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina from June 1993.

The indictment against him states that he failed to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent his subordinates committing torture, beatings, rapes and murders – including a decapitation – at Kamenica camp, a detention centre for captured Bosnian Serb soldiers and local civilians in central Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the most notorious murder, carried out on 24 July 1995, a Bosnian Serb army prisoner was decapitated at Kamenica and all the other prisoners were forced to kiss the severed head, which was later placed on a hook on the wall of the room where the prisoners were being held.

Mr. Deli&#263; also stands accused of failing to take necessary and reasonable measures to punish those soldiers who executed captured Bosnian Croat civilians and soldiers in two villages in Travnik municipality in central Bosnia and Herzegovina.
2008-02-06 00:00:00.000

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