The Balkan Conflicts Research Team is continuously producing superb, hard-hitting and intellectually provocative Twitters about Srebrenica and the Hague Tribunal. We highly recommend them to our readers who may follow them by visiting their Twitter account at: Balkan Conflicts Research Team@ResearchTeam
The tweet on ICTY’s failure to investigate is their latest production.
How were ICTY cases investigated?
Amateurishly. The ICTY had its own small team led by two middle-ranking former policemen with no experience of running a complex inquiry.
How then did they bring cases to court?
With great difficulty. General background was provided to the team by US and other intelligence services. It seems that most of the specific information was gathered from witnesses provided by the Bosnian Muslim and Croatian governments and from media reports.
Was there a professional investigatory process?
Nothing comparable with the searching, objective and independent inquiries carried out by a competent police force.
Were prosecution teams able to put forward detailed and compelling cases?
For the most part the ICTY was unable even to support its indictments. ICTY trials were invariably a meandering search for any evidence consistent with the prosecution narrative. Evidence cited as the justification for guilty verdicts invariably came in the form of hearsay, supported by forensic and DNA findings from primary evidence that was never shared with the court or provided to the defendants.
Was the court able to test the evidence rigorously?
No. And there were few signs that the court had any interest in doing so. Prosecutors were allowed great latitude to introduce witnesses whose testimony shed little or no light on the charges, apparently on the basis that sheer weight of evidence would provide a sufficient base for guilty verdicts.
Why did those working for the ICTY tolerate this?
We can only speculate. Some may have felt that the humanitarian ends justified he means. Few could have been totally unaware that the ICTY only got away with its faux-justice because it was a law unto itself and was completely unaccountable.