The most important thing for Serbia is to acknowledge its responsibility for war crimes members of its armed forces and police were involved in, but the country is not going in that direction, activist and founder of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade, Natasa Kandic, told N1.

Kandic said that Serbia must not “remain silent about facts established in courts” and that the country should accept “those facts related to war crimes committed by members of the armed forces of Serbia, police, various formations.”

Comments that the Hague Court is a political court can often be heard in Serbia but such statements have no basis, she said, stressing that many people who stood accused of war crimes “found refuge in Serbia” and giving the examples of convicted Bosnian Serb war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

“We know how peacefully Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, as well as various others, hid peacefully for years until the moment came when they were no longer important for Serbia, so they were arrested and handed over,” Kandic said, adding that Mladic stopped being important for Serbia when he became “a senile and old person” who was not able to present what he did during the war.

“Throughout the entire trial, we could not hear a single sentence containing any serious information that he would present. He is a completely senile person who repeats that the genocide did not happen and says that he came to return Srebrenica to the Serbs,” Kandic said, referring to the 1995 genocide that took place in the eastern Bosnian town.