Friday, June 03, 2011

Aging, ill war crimes suspects still face trials

Aging, ill war crimes suspects still face trials
(AP) — It has become a common sight: an elderly, shrunken, hollow-eyed suspect brought to trial decades after being accused of horrific war crimes. They may be too aged to fully participate in their defense, or too debilitated by disease to endure a lengthy court case.
Now it is former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic arguing he is too weak to stand trial. His lawyer said Monday that Mladic, 69, would die before his trial begins if he is extradited to the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague to face genocide charges. He is said to have suffered several strokes and to have difficulty speaking.

Time and again, the questions have arisen: Are you ever too old or too ill to be judged for your past? Are justice and the public interest served by trying such infirm people? Most experts say it's justified — arguing responsibility doesn't diminish with age, especially set against the enormity of the crimes.

"Old age should not afford protection to people who committed very serious crimes — that's not a defense," said Efraim Zuroff, who pursues elderly Nazi war criminals with the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

"You have to keep in mind the victims who deserve that their tormenters are held accountable; the passage of time does not diminish the guilt."

Mladic follows John Demjanjuk, a 91-year-old retired U.S. autoworker convicted in Munich this month on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder. Demjanjuk's lawyers failed to convince the court that the former Nazi death camp guard was too sick to be tried because of a bone marrow disorder, kidney disease, anemia, and other ailments.

The age and medical condition of Khmer Rouge defendants is also a central issue at Cambodia's upcoming U.N.-backed tribunal, set next month to judge four of the brutal regime's top officials. The accused, ranging in age from 79 to 85, suffer from a variety of illnesses.

"To let them walk away because they are old means they would get away with it," Brad Adams, director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said about the Khmer Rouge defendants. "They all appear to have some maladies but none of them have such significant illnesses that they are not competent to stand trial"

He said the Cambodian suspects are accused of masterminding the slaughter of up to two million people in their own country and should not be excused simply because they are infirm — or because it took so long for authorities to track them down.

"The reason they are so old is because of the failure of the states to track them down and charge them much earlier," Adams said. "They were living in Thailand and traveling around the world. It was a collective failure to deal with them."

Demjanjuk's case was one of the most extreme. After experts examined him, he was found to be fit to stand trial if hearings were limited to two 90-minute sessions per day.

He was brought to court in a wheelchair and placed in a hospital bed, where he lay listening to a translator throughout the proceedings, usually wearing dark sunglasses with a baseball cap pulled down low over his face. A doctor and paramedics remained in the court room throughout the trial. Roughly a dozen sessions were canceled for health reasons, including the need for blood transfusions.

Zuroff said it's imperative to try even ailing war crimes suspects in order to prevent future atrocities.

"There's also obviously the deterrence issue — it shows that if you commit a crime like that, that even many years later an effort will be made to bring you to trial."

And he said Mladic — and others who use this delaying tactic — are usually not as ill as they claim.

"These defendants become ten times worse than they really are as part of a public show to try and elicit sympathy," he said.

In Cambodia, International Co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley said there is a strong public interest in trying the Khmer Rouge defendants.

"The public here want them tried," he said. "They want this case done as quickly as possible. After all the four accused are alleged to have murdered over a million and a half of their own people. Nobody I know thinks age is a bar to vigorously addressing that fact."

He said the defendants — former head of state Khieu Samphan, chief ideologue Nuon Chea, former Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith, and ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary — will receive quality medical care and monitoring during the trial. The top Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998.

Theary Seng, a human rights lawyer whose parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge, said the fact that more than three decades have passed since the atrocities were committed has lessened the quality of the justice she and other victims will receive. She said victims are "bracing" for the possibility that one or two defendants will die before a verdict is reached.
"We are beyond the issues of fairness," she said. "It's an issue what is the highest quality of justice we can achieve in light of all the limitations and obstacles in our way. The advanced age of these four defendants is certainly one of the principal obstacles to quality justice. From the current standpoint, it's pretty shoddy justice we victims are getting from the Court."

If Mladic, accused in the 1995 slaughter of some 8,000 civilians in Srebrenica, is ultimately extradited, he would receive good medical care while detained at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, officials said.

Spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said the tribunal has a clinic that can provide assistance "around the clock" and can also take suspects to civilian hospitals if needed.

Nonetheless, its most high profile suspect, former Serb president Slobodan Milosevic, died of a heart attack in his cell in 2006, forever escaping judgment.

The tribunal's procedures are notoriously slow. The trial of Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic began in 2009 and is still not finished.

Still, Zumra Sehomeriovic, a Bosnian woman whose husband was killed in Srebrenica, said prosecution of Mladic is necessary.

"This is proof that this type of crime never gets old and that the perpetrators will face justice," she said.

___
David Rising in Berlin, Mike Eckel in Phnom Penh, Grant Peck in Bangkok, and Aida Cerkez in Sarajevo contributed to this report.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Koh Tral Island must not be forgotten

By Ms. Rattana Keo

Why do Koh Tral Island, known in Vietnam as Phu Quoc, a sea and land area covering proximately over 30,000 km2 [Note: the actual land size of Koh Tral itself is 574 square kilometres (222 sq miles)] have been lost to Vietnam by whose treaty? Why don’t Cambodia government be transparent and explain to Cambodia army at front line and the whole nation about this? Why don't they include this into education system? Why?

Cambodian armies are fighting at front line for 4.6 km2 on the Thai border and what's about over 30,000km2 of Cambodia to Vietnam. Nobody dare to talk about it! Why? Cambodian armies you are decide the fate of your nation, Cambodian army as well as Cambodian people must rethink about this again and again. Is it fair?

Koh Tral Island, the sea and land area of over 30,000 square kilometres have been lost to Vietnam by the 1979 to 1985 treaties. The Cambodian army at front line as well as all Cambodian people must rethink again about these issues. Are Cambodian army fighting to protect the Cambodia Nation or protecting a very small group that own big lands, big properties or only protecting a small group but disguising as protecting the Khmer nation?

The Cambodian army at front lines suffer under rain, wind, bullets, bombs, lack of foods, lack of nutrition and their families have no health care assistance, no securities after they died but a very small group eat well, sleep well, sleep in first class hotel with air conditioning system with message from young girls, have first class medical care from oversea medical treatments, they are billionaires, millionaires who sell out the country to be rich and make the Cambodian people suffer everyday.

Who signed the treaty 1979-1985 that resulted in the loss over 30,000 km2 of Cambodia??? Why they are not being transparent and brave enough to inform all Cambodians and Cambodian army at front line about these issues? Why don't they include Koh Tral (Koh Tral size is bigger than the whole Phom Phen and bigger than Singapore [Note: Singapore's present land size is 704 km2 (271.8 sq mi)]) with heap of great natural resources, in the Cambodian education system?

Look at Hun Sen's families, relatives and friends- they are billionaires, millionaires. Where did they get the money from when we all just got out of war with empty hands [in 1979]? Hun Sen always say in his speeches that Cambodia had just risen up from the ashes of war, just got up from Year Zero with empty hands and how come they are billionaires, millionaires but 90% of innocent Cambodian people are so poor and struggling with their livelihood every day?

Smart Khmer girl Ms. Rattana Keo,

Anonymous said...

Aging should not used as impunity to war crime and criminal act in the society. Justice in Cambodia has been way overdue.

Bring all the criminals and cronies under the rules of law. They must be held accountable to their EVIL acts.

Die from old age is not justice. Convict them before they die.

Anonymous said...

Aging should not be used as impunity to war crime and criminal act in the society. Justice in Cambodia has been way overdue.

Bring all the criminals, vietcongs, and cronies under the rules of law. They must be held accountable for their EVIL acts.

Dying from old age is not justice. Convict them before they die.

KhmerVictims