SERBIAN REACTION TO ORIC VERDICT/SENTENCING

C O N F I D E N T I A L BELGRADE 001092 SIPDIS C O R R E C T E D COPY-- CLASSIFIED BY LINE ADDED SIPDIS DOJ FOR ALEXANDRE E.O. 12958: DECL: CLOSURE OF ICTY TAGS: ICTY KCRM PHUM PREL SR SUBJECT: SERBIAN REACTION TO ORIC VERDICT/SENTENCING CLASSIFIED BY POLOFF IAN CAMPBELL U.S. EMBASSY BELGEADE FOR REASONS 1.4 (b&d) ¶1. (u) Summary: The recent verdict of the Hague Tribunal (ICTY) against wartime commander of Muslim forces in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, has enraged the Serbian leadership and public and received widespread negative coverage in local media. To many here, the Tribunal's decisions - coming on the heels of widely-questioned ICTY decisions in the Haradinaj and Milosevic cases - confirm the perception that Serbs are held to a higher standard of accountability by ICTY than their Muslim or Croat counterparts. The decision to allow Oric his freedom after only minimal "time served" fuels Serbian paranoia that there will be no justice for their own war criminals and lends credence in some circles to the argument that it would not be in Serbia's interest to hand over Mladic. End summary. ¶2. (u) On July 1, 2006, ICTY judges sentenced wartime commander of Muslim forces in Srebrenica, Nasr Oric, to two years in prison on charges of command responsibility. Since he had already been in detention for three years, the court immediately released him. According to local media, the court based its decision and sentencing on the determination that Oric did not have control of either his troops or the civilian combatants who accompanied them and who perpetrated war crimes in the Srebrenica area against non-Muslims. Many local legal experts believe the prosecutor bungled the case by not developing a compelling link from Oric to the actions of his troops. ¶3. (u) In light of the lenient treatment of Haradinaj and the death of Milosevic while in prison, the light sentencing of Oric has led both the Serbian public and government officials to again openly question the legitimacy and credibility of the Tribunal. PM Kostunica told local press, "The Hague Tribunal, which has been envisioned as the state-of-the-art in global justice, is transformed into the opposite with this verdict - a mockery of justice." Deputy Radical Party leader Aleksandar Vucic, meanwhile, said the verdict "shows the Tribunal's anti-Serb bias." Editor-in-Chief of the pro-government daily Politika (and rumored aspirant to be Serbia's next Ambassador to the US),Ljiljana Smajlovic, compared the ruling with The Hague's decision to allow Ramush Haradinaj to engage in political activities while awaiting trial. She noted, "These are the last nails being hammered into the coffin of this Tribunal's reputation among our public." ¶4. (c) President Tadic told DCM at the July fourth celebration that the Oric sentence was a major problem for him. The light sentencing of Oric, he said, plays into the hands of the Radicals, who oppose any cooperation with the US. Head of the local ICTY office Deyan Mihov was similarly mystified by the decisions. Normally a stalwart defender of ICTY, he said it is becoming increasingly obvious that decisions in the chamber are being politically driven. ¶5. (c) The newspapers have been chock-a-block with reports on Oric's alleged crimes in Eastern Bosnia. Tadic told the DCM he was stunned by the verdict, since he "had seen the photographs of the victims" and had visited Kravica, the site of a January 1993 attack on a Serb village. None of the press reporting has focused on Serb actions that led to the creation of the Srebrenica enclave in the first place. ¶6. (c) Comment: This decision is a further blow to rational discourse on war crimes in a country where 80 percent of the population believe more Serbs were killed in Bosnia than members of any other ethnic group. Even some of the more progressive elements in Serbia are having trouble coming to grips with what they see as vastly different treatment of Serb and non-Serb indictees. This angst is well reflected in the press, and will make it ever harder to push the government to do what it can and must to close the ICTY issues for good. End comment. POLT