A member of the "Mothers of Srebrenica" Association Kada Hotic told N1 that the decision to replace three judges from the second-instance procedure in the Ratko Mladic case is a verdict against them to leave them without justice.
“The decision to remove two judges familiar with the case will lead to a situation where no one is responsible for war crimes. If we were sentenced to death in the beginning, this will be our end,” Hotic said.
Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti accepted the appeal by war crime suspect Ratko Mladic's defence and excluded Carmel Agius, Liu Daqun and Theodor Meron from the second-instance procedure in this case.
Following the decision that Antonetti issued on Wednesday, the Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT), the successor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), appointed three new judges in this case. The trial chamber will now consist of judges Mparany Mamy Richard Rajohnson, Gberdao Gustave Kam and Elizabeth Ibanda-Nahamya.
The ICTY sentenced on November 22, 2017, former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic to life imprisonment, convicting him of 10 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Mladic was acquitted of charges for genocide in six Bosnian municipalities.
The Mothers of Srebrenica, also known as the Mothers of the Enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa, is an activist and lobbying group based in the Netherlands, and represents some 6,000 survivors of the siege of Srebrenica, during the war in Bosnia (1992-1995).
The organization is best known for bringing a civil action against the United Nations for a breach of duty of care for the failure to prevent the genocide at Srebrenica. The Association was founded in 2002 by Hatidza Mehmedovic to advocate for justice for victims of the Srebrenica genocide.
