The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
Slobodan Miloevi (Serbian Cyrillic: , pronounced [slobdan mileit] (listen); 20 August 1941 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who served as the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, from 1989 to 1992) and president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. Formerly a high-ranking member of the League of Communists of Serbia (SKS) during the 1980s, he led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990 until 2003.
Born in Poarevac, he studied law at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law and joined the League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia as a student. During the 1960s he served as an advisor to mayor of Belgrade Branko Pei, and was later appointed chairman of Tehnogas and Beobanka, roles which he served until the 1980s. Miloevi rose to power in 1987 by promoting populist and nationalist views, arguing for the reduction of power of Serbia's autonomous provinces and increased centralism. He was elected president of Socialist Republic of Serbia in 1989 and led the anti-bureaucratic revolution, after which he reformed Serbia's constitution by transitioning Serbia to a multi-party system, and reduced the power of autonomous provinces. Following the 1990 general elections, Miloevi enacted a dominant-party rule while his party retained control over key economic resources of the state.The constituent republics of the Yugoslavia split apart amid the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars, while Serbia and Montenegro formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Miloevi played a major role in the wars, and negotiated the Dayton Agreement on behalf of Bosnian Serbs, which ended the Bosnian War in 1995. During his reign, numerous anti-government and anti-war protests took place, while it is also estimated that between 50,000 and 200,000 people deserted the Miloevi-controlled Yugoslav People's Army, and that between 100,000 and 150,000 people emigrated from Serbia, refusing to participate in the wars. During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Miloevi was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with war crimes in connection with the Bosnian War, the Croatian War of Independence, and the Kosovo War. He became the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes. Observers have described his political behavior as populist, eclectic and opportunist. Miloevi resigned from the Yugoslav presidency amid demonstrations after the disputed presidential election of 24 September 2000, and was arrested by Yugoslav federal authorities on 31 March 2001 on suspicion of corruption, abuse of power, and embezzlement. The initial investigation into Miloevi faltered due to lack of evidence, prompting prime minister Zoran ini to extradite him to the ICTY to stand trial for war crimes instead. At the outset of the trial, Miloevi denounced the Tribunal as illegal because it had not been established with the consent of the United Nations General Assembly; therefore, he refused to appoint counsel for his defence. Miloevi conducted his own defence in the five-year trial, which ended without a verdict when he died in his prison cell in The Hague on 11 March 2006. Miloevi suffered from heart ailments and hypertension, and died of a heart attack. The Tribunal denied any responsibility for Miloevi's death and said that he had refused to take prescribed medicines and medicated himself instead.After Miloevi's death, the ICTY and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals found that he was a part of a joint criminal enterprise to remove Croats and Bosniaks from large parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded separately in the Bosnian Genocide Case that there was no evidence linking him to genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian War. However, the Court did find that Miloevi and others in Serbia had violated the Genocide Convention by failing to prevent the genocide from occurring, by not cooperating with the ICTY in punishing its perpetrators, in particular general Ratko Mladi, and by violating its obligation to comply with the provisional measures the Court ordered. Miloevi's rule has been described as authoritarian or autocratic, as well as kleptocratic, with numerous accusations of electoral fraud, political assassinations, suppression of press freedom and police brutality.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal was an ad hoc court located in The Hague, Netherlands.
It was established by Resolution 827 of the United Nations Security Council, which was passed on 25 May 1993. It had jurisdiction over four clusters of crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991: grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, violations of the laws or customs of war, genocide, and crimes against humanity. The maximum sentence that it could impose was life imprisonment. Various countries signed agreements with the UN to carry out custodial sentences.
A total of 161 persons were indicted; the final indictments were issued in December 2004, the last of which were confirmed and unsealed in the spring of 2005. The final fugitive, Goran Hadžić, was arrested on 20 July 2011. The final judgment was issued on 29 November 2017 and the institution formally ceased to exist on 31 December 2017.Residual functions of the ICTY, including oversight of sentences and consideration of any appeal proceedings initiated since 1 July 2013, are under the jurisdiction of a successor body, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT).