Izetbegović on Karadžić verdict: This is a day in which a significant part of the truth about Bosnia's past has been confirmed

Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegović held a press conference where he commented on the verdict against Radovan Karadžić. He said that March 24, 2016 is a historic day for Bosnia and Herzegovina, reports the Patria news agency.

- This is a day in which a significant part of the truth about its recent past has been confirmed, which must significantly affect the future. Radovan Karadžić was today sentenced to 40 years in prison. For his age and his past, that is not much of a punishment, and it has no special significance for the victims and Bosnia and Herzegovina. What does matter is the fact that the verdict was passed against a terrible ideology and policy. After a thorough judicial process that lasted six years, a verdict was passed against the leader of the political and military forces that carried out complete ethnic cleansing in half of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who for that purpose carried out mass forced deportations, organized concentration camps, and conducted a multi-year siege and shelling and sniper killings of civilians, which culminated in the genocide in Srebrenica - Izetbegović emphasized.

He added that the verdict established that Karadžić initiated the joint criminal enterprise as early as the fall of 1991.

- Crimes were systematically and organized prepared and committed, by which hundreds of thousands of Bosniaks and Croats were expelled, and the traces of their existence, faith, and culture were erased. The verdict against Karadžić is the most significant since the one pronounced in Nuremberg. Some claim that there are three truths about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but there can only be more half-truths. The truth is one. The verdict for genocide was not pronounced for six municipalities. We believe and hope that the Appeals Chamber will correct this injustice.

Also surprising is the claim that Bosnian forces targeted UN soldiers and territories under their own control. It will be interesting to learn on what evidence this claim by the Hague Tribunal is based.

This verdict is important for the victims, the region, but also for the entire world.

There is no punishment that can be even close to satisfaction for the victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nevertheless, with this verdict, the civilized world has shown that it understands their suffering and sympathizes with them. That justice is slow, but still partially attainable - Izetbegović stated, adding that it is important that a verdict was pronounced for almost everything that was done, but it is confusing that some generals, to whom Karadžić was superior, received life imprisonment, while the supreme commander of the army and former president of the Republika Srpska received 40 years in prison.