Bećirović on Karadžić verdict: His political leadership intended to destroy Bosniaks and Croats

Dr. Zijad Bećirović, director of the International Institute for Middle Eastern and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) from Ljubljana, believes that the verdict against war criminal Radovan Karadžić is important for BiH, but that it is no less important for the world because it expresses a civilizational attitude towards crime and criminals, writes the Bosnian news agency Patria.

- Ten out of eleven counts of the indictment have been proven. Genocide in seven municipalities can be proven in the appeals process. It is important that the genocide in Srebrenica and the four counts of joint criminal enterprise (JCE) have been proven. In this way, a strong message has also been sent to the international community. The comprehensive JCE has been proven, meaning that Karadžić's political leadership intended to destroy Bosniaks and Croats in the areas they considered "theirs". And probably most importantly, when the judicial processes at the ICTY are concluded, it will inevitably lead to the need to eliminate the consequences of the committed crimes and genocide, which will open a series of questions, and one is quite certain: the internal structure of BiH, which arose as a result of the committed war crimes and genocide - says Bećirović.

We remind you, Karadžić was sentenced to 40 years in prison in the first-instance verdict, and numerous surviving victims and families of victims are dissatisfied because he was not convicted of genocide in seven other municipalities where mass graves were found that testify to the murders of Bosniaks and Croats in Prijedor, Ključ, Sanski Most, Vlasenica, Foča, Zvornik and Bratunac).