Release of convict Žigić by Meron humiliated genocide victims in Prijedor

 

By the decision of the President of the Hague Tribunal, Theodor Meron, war convict Zoran Žigić has been granted early release. After serving two-thirds of the 25-year sentence he was convicted to for crimes in Prijedor death camps, Žigić was released early by President Meron's decision. Žigić was convicted in 2005 for crimes committed in Prijedor camps. Along with him, Miroslav Kvočka, Dragoljub Prcać, Milojica Kos, and Mlađo Radić were also convicted, reports the Patria News Agency.

The early release of war convict Žigić is an insult to the victims of genocide in Prijedor, that joint criminal, military-police undertaking of genocidal intent and scale in which between 30 and 32 civilians, mostly Bosniaks, were killed daily.

Among the 3,173 killed are 103 children and 256 women from Prijedor. Numerous victims from Prijedor are still being searched for. Meron has long forgotten the fact that Trnopolje camp was the camp with the largest number of inmates in the entire former Yugoslavia. He also forgot the fact that Prijedor camps were the most brutal in Europe after the Holocaust.

Meron does not want to know that in Prijedor, a symbol of a place on Earth where almost an entire ethnic group was intentionally destroyed, culturecide, ecocide, ethnocide, urbanicide, and especially eliticude were also committed. Tomašica, the largest mass grave in the Balkans, was found in the municipality of Prijedor. Prijedor is also a symbol of the white armbands that the non-Serb population was forced to wear in 1992 to mark them for extermination.

A minimum of justice for the victims of genocide in Prijedor would be the full serving of sentences for those accused of these greatest crimes after World War II in Europe. President Meron's attitude towards justice for the aggression and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina distances the truth about these crimes, thus creating conditions for new crimes.

Starting from the fact that the shameful decision of the Hague Tribunal to release Žigić early has trampled truth and justice, humiliated victims of aggression and genocide, rewarded criminals, victims are not free again, criminals are free again, we call on President Meron to change his attitude towards truth and justice and thus prevent the downfall of the Hague Tribunal, which would be the downfall of international justice, the downfall of truth, the victory of evil.

The Hague Tribunal and its president should prevent the great fear and apprehension among victims and restore the Tribunal's obligation to fulfill its mission, which is based on delivering justice and warning future generations that crime does not pay and will be punished, it was announced from the Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada.