Association 'Woman - War Victim': Ratko Mladić's victims had no right to invoke 'humanitarian reasons'

(Patria) - The Association 'Woman – War Victim' is deeply disturbed by the increasingly intense public appearances and initiatives coming from Serbia and the BiH entity of Republika Srpska, as well as from family members of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić, which openly and directly aim to pressure the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts with the goal of his early release. The Association has sent a letter to the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts addressed to Graciela Gatti Santana.

"We consider any attempt to relativize the final verdict by which Ratko Mladić was sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes to be unacceptable. This verdict represents one of the key pillars of international justice, and questioning it, directly or indirectly, is a serious blow to the legal order established after the committed crimes.

We particularly emphasize that invoking 'humanitarian reasons' must not be misused in a way that would lead to the de facto avoidance of serving the sentence. Life imprisonment must mean exactly that, the full and unquestionable implementation of the imposed sanction.

In this context, we remind that the standards for early release must remain extremely restrictive, based solely on rigorous, independent, and transparent assessments," the reaction states.

For the victims and their families, any potential release would represent a deep humiliation and a new trauma, and would seriously undermine trust in international judicial institutions, including the Mechanism itself, the Association points out.

"We call on the Mechanism to remain consistent with its own principles, protect the integrity of its verdicts, and ensure that Ratko Mladić's sentence is carried out in full, without succumbing to any external pressures.

Justice for victims must not be a subject of negotiation or political initiatives. We remind the public that Ratko Mladić's victims had no right to invoke 'humanitarian reasons'. Freedom was not offered to them, they did not even have the right to ask for it; their lives were taken and they ended up in mass graves."