The Kosovo Indictment, brought against Milosevic and four other Serbian political or military leaders (Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanovic, and Vlajko Stojiljkovic), charges Milosevic with 5 counts. Four of those counts – deportation, other inhumane acts (forcible transfer), murder, and persecution – are charged as crimes against humanity. The other – murder – is charged as a violation of the laws or customs of war. The indictment charges Milosevic with individual responsibility for planning, instigating, ordering, committing or otherwise aiding and abetting in the crimes as part of a "joint criminal enterprise," with others. It also charges him with "superior responsibility" for the crimes because he allegedly knew or had reason to know that the crimes were being committed by subordinates and he failed to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or punish the crimes. Specifically, the Kosovo Indictment alleges that between January 1 and June 20, 1999, Milosevic participated in a deliberate campaign of terror and violence against Kosovo Albanians, targeting them with the goal of expelling a substantial portion from Kovoso in order to ensure that Serbs maintained control over the province. The terror, violence, and persecution were conducted by such means as deportation, murder, sexual assault, and destruction of property.

The Croatia Indictment charges Milosevic under individual and superior responsibility with 32 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for such crimes as persecution, extermination, murder, unlawful confinement, torture, inhumane acts, deportation, and plunder. The war crimes charges are based on grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions or violations of the laws or customs of war, including violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Specifically, the Indictment alleges that Milosevic, acting alone or in concert with others, participated in a joint criminal enterprise with the objective to attack civilian populations in Croatia from August 1, 1991 or earlier, until at least June 1992. These attacks intentionally or foreseeably allegedly resulted in, among other things, the death of hundreds of civilians, the forcible removal of the Croat and other non-Serb population from certain territories, the unlawful confinement of civilians in inhumane conditions, the torture, murder, beating, sexual assault, and deportation of civilians, and destruction of religious and cultural property.

The Bosnia Indictment charges Milosevic with 29 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The two genocide counts charge genocide and complicity in genocide for the alleged widespread killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during and after the take-over of specified territories in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in detention facilities, the causing of serious bodily and mental harm to non-Serbs confined in detention facilities by subjecting the detainees to or forcing them to endure or witness murder, rape, torture, and other forms of violence, and subjecting the detainees to inhumane treatment and conditions in the camps which were calculated to bring about the partial physical destruction of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats. The crimes are alleged to have been committed in Bosnia as objectives or foreseeable outcomes of the joint criminal enterprise from August 1, 1991 until at least December 31, 1995.

The genocide charge, which is contained solely in the Bosnian Indictment, alleges that Bosnian Serbs killed thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, and further caused serious bodily and mental harm to thousands of others by confining them and subjecting the detainees to sexual violence, torture, beatings, and other inhumane acts. The genocide charge specifically includes crimes related to the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, crimes for which Serb General Radislav Krstic has already been convicted of genocide. Milosevic is said to incur responsibility for the genocide by his acts and omissions in regards to the crimes which were said to have been committed with an intent to destroy the groups in whole or in part.

K.A.

Related chapters from Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know

Bosnia
Crimes against humanity
Deportation
Ethnic Cleansing
Genocide

Related Links

ICTY home page
including live video of the Milosevic trial and transcripts of earlier sessions

The Milosevic Trial–Part 1

Video Archive of the Milosevic trial
From the Human Rights Project at Bard College