Kathryne Bomberger: Karadžić verdict a confirmation of the rule of law

Kathryne Bomberger, Director-General of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), stated today that the decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the case of Radovan Karadžić, after a trial that lasted more than seven years, is an important confirmation of the rule of law, reports Patria.

Karadžić was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws and customs of war, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

He was convicted of genocide in the Srebrenica region in 1995, persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts (forcible transfer), terror, unlawful attacks on civilians, and taking hostages. He was acquitted of genocide charges in other municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

- Those who killed unarmed civilians, and those who consciously created circumstances for crimes, believed they could permanently erase the identity of the victims. They were wrong - said Kathryne Bomberger.

- The work of the ICMP, especially the scientific evidence of the identity of victims from the 1990s conflicts, has made it possible to assemble irrefutable evidence of crimes and present it in numerous trials, including the cases of Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić.

The ICMP has worked on finding and identifying 40,000 people who went missing during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. More than 70 percent of these people have been found, including about 7,000 out of a total of about 8,000 who went missing in Srebrenica in July 1995. With the help of ICMP's DNA identification techniques, it was possible to identify thousands of Srebrenica victims, despite attempts by perpetrators of massacres to hide evidence of exhumations and bodies.

- Today's verdict gives hope to survivors, including the families of the missing, that justice can be served. It is up to the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Western Balkans to decide on an honest reckoning with the past, to reject chauvinistic approaches or denial, and to remain persistent in their efforts to find the remaining 12,000 missing persons - said Kathryne Bomberger, reports Patria.