On May 16, Penn State Law Professor Dermot Groome began presenting evidence in the prosecution of Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague. Mladic is accused of orchestrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing during the civil war that tore apart Yugoslavia.
The ethnic cleansing was not a byproduct of the war, but a specific aim of the Bosnian Serb leadership, claims the prosecution. Prosecutors will present evidence, including Mladic's own wartime diaries, that demonstrate "beyond reasonable doubt the hand of Mr. Mladic in each of these crimes," Groome said during his opening statement.
Mladic, who has been in hiding for 16 years, faces charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys and for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo in which 12,000 were killed.
Groome has extensive prosecutorial, investigative, and international experience. He is a senior trial attorney at the Office of the Prosecutor for ICTY, a special court established to try those responsible for atrocities during the war. Groome was responsible for the Bosnian indictment against Slobodan Milosevic, and for the prosecution of Milan Lukic and Jovica Stanisic, the head of the State Security Service in Serbia. He supervises the Law School’s International Justice Externship Program at The Hague, Netherlands.
Watch Prosecution Opening Statements – Mladic (Part 1)
Watch Prosecution Opening Statements – Mladic (Part 2)