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The Hague /Â AFP
Prosecutors urged UN judges on Wednesday to jail Ratko Mladic for life, accusing the former Serb commander of a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing to create a Greater Serbia in the 1990s Balkans wars.
“It would be… an insult to the victims, living and dead, and an affront to justice to impose any sentence other than the most severe available one: a life sentence,” prosecutor Alan Tieger told the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
“The time has come for General Mladic to be held accountable for those crimes against each of his
victims and the communities he
destroyed.”
Once dubbed “the Butcher of Bosnia”, Mladic, 74, has denied 11 charges including two of genocide, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the bloody 1992-95 Bosnian conflict.
More than 100,000 people died and 2.2 million others were left homeless in what prosecutors say was a relentless campaign aimed at chasing all non-Serbs from Bosnian territory with the aim of creating a Greater Serbia.
After living openly in Serbia despite an international arrest warrant against him, Mladic was finally captured in 2011 after 16 years on the run. His trial opened in May 2012.
During three days of closing arguments, prosecutors brushed aside defence claims that Mladic, as the commander of Serbian forces, only had a limited role in the Bosnian conflict maintaining he was the man “who was in charge, who called the shots.”
“His concern was not that Muslims might create a state, his concern was to have them vanish completely,” Tieger told judges on Monday.
The defence team will now open three days of closing arguments on Friday and into next week. A verdict and judgement is not expected until some time in 2017.