Subašić: Tolimir verdict is new proof that genocide was committed in Srebrenica

President of the Association „Mothers of the Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves“ Munira Subašić is pleased with the life sentence for former Bosnian Serb Army General Zdravko Tolimir.

Subašić told the Patria news agency that nothing can compensate for the suffering and pain of Bosniaks who survived the genocide in eastern Bosnia and lost their loved ones during the aggression, but the verdict is important because it is yet another proof that genocide against Bosniaks occurred in Srebrenica, which most Serbian politicians still deny.

Subašić noted that Tolimir is responsible for the liquidation of three of the most prominent Bosniak leaders in Žepa - Mehmed Hajrić, Amir Imamović and Avdo Palić, which further confirms that the Serbian side worked deliberately to persecute Bosniaks from eastern Bosnia.

At the Hague Tribunal on April 8, a final verdict was handed down against former Bosnian Serb Army General Zdravko Tolimir (64), and his first-instance life sentence was upheld, Patria reports.

On December 12, 2012, the Hague Tribunal sentenced Tolimir to life imprisonment for genocide and other war crimes committed in Srebrenica and Žepa in 1995. The verdict confirmed that genocide occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Tolimir was an assistant to former Bosnian Serb army commander General Ratko Mladić, also charged with war crimes and genocide.

In 2012, the Chamber established that Tolimir's participation in two joint criminal enterprises of the political and military leadership of the RS was proven, the aims of which were the mass killing and forcible removal of the Muslim population from two eastern Bosnian enclaves.

Tolimir was also found guilty of the crimes of extermination, murder, persecution and forcible transfer of Bosniaks from Srebrenica and Žepa from May to November 1995.

The verdict established that the mass killings of residents of Srebrenica and Žepa, as well as the three Bosniak leaders in Žepa - Mehmed Hajrić, Amir Imamović and Avdo Palić, and the expulsion, abuse and suffering of civilians constituted genocide, because they aimed at the destruction of the Muslim population in eastern Bosnia.

Prosecutors said that Tolimir carried out the order of RS President Radovan Karadžić, also charged with war crimes and genocide, and General Mladić that all able-bodied Bosniak men from Srebrenica be killed, by planning the crime, while Tolimir claimed that such orders never existed.

The prosecution argued that Tolimir, together with Mladić and other commanders in the Bosnian Serb army, was a participant in a joint criminal enterprise whose aim was the permanent removal of Bosniaks from Srebrenica and Žepa.