Page 564
1 Wednesday, 4 April 2007
2 [Sentencing Judgement]
3 [Open session]
4 [The accused entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 1.46 p.m.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Good afternoon, Mr. Registrar. Would you please call
7 the case.
8 [French on English channel]
9 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours. This
10 is case number IT-96-23/2-S, The Prosecutor versus Dragan Zelenovic.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you. Mr. Registrar. Yes, I received French on
12 channel 4. I now receive either live or English on channel 3. I now
13 receive again English on channel 4.
14 JUDGE MOLOTO: I have nothing.
15 JUDGE ORIE: You cannot hear anything?
16 JUDGE MOLOTO: No, nothing.
17 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
18 [Trial Chamber confers]
19 JUDGE ORIE: This Trial Chamber is sitting today to deliver its
20 sentencing judgement in the case of The Prosecutor versus Dragan
21 Zelenovic. For the purposes of this hearing, the Trial Chamber will
22 summarise briefly its findings, and we emphasise that this is a summary
23 only and that the authoritative account of the Trial Chamber's finding is
24 to be found in a written sentencing judgement, which will be made
25 available at the end of this session.
Page 565
1 Mr. Zelenovic was charged with seven counts of torture and rape as
2 crimes against humanity, and seven counts of torture and rape as a violations
3 of the laws or customs of war. He is charged as individually responsible,
4 pursuant to Article 7(1) of the Statute. The crimes charged took place in
5 there Foca municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina from July to October,
6 1992.
7 Some years after an indictment against Mr. Zelenovic had been
8 issued by this Tribunal, Mr. Zelenovic left his home and travelled to
9 Russia under a false name in order to avoid detection and arrest. He was
10 arrested by Russian authorities on the 22nd of August, 2005; and on
11 the 8th of June, 2006, he was transferred to Bosnia and Herzegovina. From
12 there, he was transferred to the Tribunal and detained at the United
13 Nations Detention Unit.
14 The Referral Bench was at this time already seized of a
15 Prosecution motion pursuant to Rule 11 bis to transfer the case of
16 Mr. Zelenovic to Bosnia and Herzegovina for trial there. However, on 14th
17 of December, 2006, the Prosecution and Defence in this case filed a joint
18 motion for consideration of a Plea Agreement between Mr. Zelenovic and the
19 Office of the Prosecutor, according to which Mr. Zelenovic agreed to plead
20 guilt to three counts of torture and four counts of rape as crimes against
21 humanity.
22 During a hearing before this Trial Chamber on the 17th of January
23 2007, Mr. Zelenovic pleaded guilty to the mentioned seven counts of crimes
24 against humanity. At that same hearing, the Trial Chamber accepted the
25 guilty pleas and found Mr. Zelenovic guilty accordingly. The facts
Page 566
1 underlying the guilty plea are set out in a factual statement attached to
2 the plea agreement. The Trial Chamber will now summarise these facts.
3 Dragan Zelenovic was born on 12 February 1961 in Foca, eastern
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina. During the indictment period, Mr. Zelenovic was a
5 soldier and, de facto, a military policeman in the Bosnian Serb
6 Territorial Defence, and from the summer 1992 onwards in the Bosnian Serb
7 army.
8 The political and military take-over of Foca municipality started
9 with the Serb forces shelling the town of Foca with heavy artillery in the
10 beginning of April 1992. This attack was part of an armed conflict in
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina between forces of the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina
12 and Serb forces. The attacks on Foca and the surrounding villages, most
13 of which were under defended and had no military targets, lasted until
14 mid-July 1992.
15 During and after the take-over of Foca town and its surrounding
16 villages and municipalities, Muslim and other non-Serb inhabitants were
17 subjected to widespread and systematic pattern of abuses designed to
18 remove the majority of them from the municipality. Muslim and other
19 non-Serb inhabitants were methodically rounded up, beaten, and sometimes
20 killed. Men and women were separated and transported to various detention
21 facilities where they are subjected to humiliating and degrading
22 treatment.
23 After extended periods of detention, the detainees were deported
24 or forcibly transferred to Montenegro or locations controlled by the
25 government of Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a consequence of the attack on the
Page 567
1 civilian population of Foca and its surrounding municipalities, Muslim
2 civilians were, to a very large extent, expelled from the region.
3 Mr. Zelenovic was involved in the attack on Foca town and its
4 surrounding villages and the subsequent arrest of civilians between
5 mid-April and mid-July 1992. The parties agree that an armed conflict
6 existed in Bosnia and Herzegovina at all times relevant to the indictment.
7 Further more, the parties agree that Mr. Zelenovic's criminal acts
8 and omissions were part of a widespread or systematic attack against the
9 civilian population, especially the Muslim population of Foca
10 municipality.
11 Finally, the parties agree that Mr. Zelenovic was aware of the
12 existence of the armed conflict and of the widespread and systematic
13 attack on the non-Serb, primarily Muslim, civilian population and of the
14 fact that his conduct occurred within and contributed to that attack.
15 The crimes to which Mr. Zelenovic has pleaded guilty took place in
16 several different detention centres in Foca municipality where Muslim
17 women and girls were held.
18 On the 3rd of July, 1992, Mr. Zelenovic, along with other men,
19 arrested a group of about 60 Muslim women, children, and elderly men from
20 a village in Foca municipality and took them to a temporary detention
21 facility called Buk Bijela. At the detention centre, Mr. Zelenovic and
22 other men separated the women from the children. They started to
23 interrogate the women, and in the course of these interrogations the women
24 were threatened with sexual assault and murder.
25 During one of the first days of detention, Mr. Zelenovic and
Page 568
1 another man interrogated Witness 75 about her village and whether the
2 villagers had weapons. Witness 75 was warned by the other men that she
3 would be raped by soldiers and killed afterwards, if she did not answer
4 truthfully. When Mr. Zelenovic and the other interrogator found that the
5 victim did not answer their questions adequately, she was taken by a
6 soldier to another room where ten soldiers raped her in turn.
7 Mr. Zelenovic knew that his action in respect of the interrogation
8 and his failure to act with regard to the threats of rape and death
9 against Witness 75 substantially assisted in the commission of this crime
10 against her.
11 Around the same time in July 1992, Mr. Zelenovic and three
12 unidentified soldiers interrogated Witness 87, a 15-year-old Muslim girl,
13 in a room at Buk Bijela. During the interrogation, Mr. Zelenovic and the
14 three soldiers accused the girl of not telling the truth and raped her.
15 During the rape, one of the soldiers threatened the victim by putting a
16 gun to her head.
17 Within ten days of being detained at Buk Bijela, the group of
18 women, children, and elderly were transferred and detained together with
19 other persons in two classrooms at Foca High School. On one occasion,
20 Mr. Zelenovic, together with other men, selected four women and girls from
21 the classrooms, among them Witness 75 and Witness 87. Mr. Zelenovic led
22 them to another classroom where soldiers were waiting. He then decided
23 which woman should go with which soldier. Mr. Zelenovic raped Witness 75,
24 while the other soldiers raped the other women and girls.
25 Between 8 and 13 July 1992, Witness 75 and Witness 87 were taken
Page 569
1 from Foca High School to various locations on three separate occasions.
2 On the first, the women were taken to an apartment owned by Mr. Zelenovic.
3 There, he and three other men raped Witness 75. Mr. Zelenovic also raped
4 Witness 87 on that occasion. On the second occasion, the women were taken
5 to another apartment, where Mr. Zelenovic again raped them. On the third
6 occasion, Mr. Zelenovic took the women to an abandoned house in Gornji
7 Polje where he raped Witness 87.
8 On 13 July 1992, the detainees at Foca High School were
9 transferred to Partizan Sports Hall where they were detained for one
10 month, after which most detainees were deported to Montenegro. The
11 detainees were all Muslim civilians from villages in Foca municipality.
12 Living conditions at Partizan Sports Hall were brutal, and the detention
13 was characterised by inhumane treatment, starvation, and physical and
14 psychological torture, including sexual assaults.
15 On one occasion in July 1992, Mr. Zelenovic and other men took
16 Witness 87 away from Partizan Sports Hall and raped her. On another
17 occasion, in August, Witness 87 and Witness 75 were taken from Partizan
18 Sports Hall and detained in a house known as Karaman's House. From there,
19 at the end of October the same year, Mr. Zelenovic and two co-perpetrators
20 took Witness 87, Witness 75, and two other women to an apartment in Foca.
21 There, Mr. Zelenovic raped Witness 87, while the co-perpetrators raped the
22 other women.
23 Mr. Zelenovic pleaded guilty to all the incidents of torture and
24 rape mentioned.
25 We now come to sentencing considerations.
Page 570
1 The Prosecution has recommended that Mr. Zelenovic be sentenced to
2 imprisonment within the range of ten to 15 years, while the Defence has
3 recommended a term within the range of seven to ten years.
4 In determining the appropriate sentence, the Chamber has accessed
5 the gravity of Mr. Zelenovic's crimes, including the nature of the crimes
6 of torture and rape as crimes against humanity, the particular
7 circumstances of the case, and from the form and degree of participation
8 of Mr. Zelenovic. The crimes to which Mr. Zelenovic has pleaded guilty
9 were part of a pattern of sexual assaults that took place over a period of
10 several months and in many different locations and involved multiple
11 victims. Mr. Zelenovic took direct part in the sexual abuse of victims in
12 a number of detention facilities, including multiple rapes of Witness 75
13 and Witness 87.
14 Mr. Zelenovic has been found guilty of personally committing nine
15 rapes, eight of which were qualified as both torture and rape. He has
16 also been found guilty of two instances of rape through
17 co-perpetratorship, one of which was qualified as both torture and rape,
18 and one incident of torture and rape through aiding and abetting. Four of
19 the rapes he took part in were gang-rapes, together with three or more
20 other perpetrators.
21 In one of those instances, he participated as aider and abettor in
22 the gang-rape of Witness 75 by at least ten soldiers, which was so violent
23 that the victim lost consciousness. He participated as co-perpetrator in
24 an incident during which the victim was threatened with a gun to her head
25 while being sexually abused. The Trial Chamber finds that the scale of
Page 571
1 the crimes committed was large and that Mr. Zelenovic's participation in
2 the crimes was substantial.
3 The victims in this case were a particularly vulnerable -- in a
4 particularly vulnerable situation at the time of the commission of the
5 crime. They were unarmed and defenceless and detained under brutal
6 conditions for long periods of time. In addition, Witness 87, who was
7 raped by Mr. Zelenovic on numerous occasions, was about 15 years old at
8 the time of the commission of the crimes.
9 The women and girls in the detention centres lived in constant
10 fear of repeated rapes and sexual assaults. Some became suicidal and
11 others became indifferent to what happened to them. The victims at the
12 detention centres in Foca suffered the unspeakable pain, indignity, and
13 humiliation of being repeatedly violated without knowing whether they
14 would survive the ordeal. The scars left by the sexual assaults were deep
15 and might never heal. This, perhaps, more than anything, speaks about the
16 gravity of the crimes in this case.
17 There are a number of individual circumstances of Mr. Zelenovic
18 that have been accorded weight in mitigation. The Trial Chamber
19 emphasises, however, that such circumstances do not in any way diminish
20 the gravity of the crime.
21 Mr. Zelenovic decided to admit his guilt and plead guilty. There
22 are a number of reasons, applicable in the present case, why a guilty plea
23 should be attached weight in mitigation. The Trial Chamber has considered
24 Mr. Zelenovic's admission of guilt and the decision to face the
25 consequences of his previous acts. The Trial Chamber has also considered
Page 572
1 the effect a guilty plea could have on establishing the truth and
2 contributing to reconciliation in the region and the fact that a guilty
3 plea relieves the victims of horrible crimes from reliving their trauma by
4 being forced to give evidence in court. Finally, the Trial Chamber has
5 considered the time an effort saved by the Tribunal through avoidance of a
6 lengthy trial, although it has given this aspect limited weight.
7 The Trial Chamber has also given weight to Mr. Zelenovic's
8 commitment to cooperate with the Office of the Prosecutor, including
9 giving evidence in court, and the cooperation he has given so far. The
10 Trial Chamber has also considered the remorse expressed by Mr. Zelenovic
11 for the crimes he has committed as a mitigating factor. Finally, the
12 Trial Chamber has given limited weight to the following individual
13 circumstances of Mr. Zelenovic: His family and health situation, his lack
14 of prior convictions, and his good conduct during detention.
15 The Trial Chamber has, in determining the sentence, also
16 considered the general practice regarding prison sentences in the Courts
17 of the former Yugoslavia as well as the case-law of this Tribunal.
18 Mr. Zelenovic, would you please stand.
19 For the reasons summarized above, this Trial Chamber, having
20 considered the facts of the case and the arguments of the parties, the
21 statute and the rules, and based upon the factual and legal findings as
22 determined in the sentencing judgement, hereby sentences you,
23 Mr. Zelenovic, to a single sentence of 15 years of imprisonment. You are
24 entitled to the credit for the period of time you have in custody for the
25 purpose of this case. You were arrested by the Russian authorities on the
Page 573
1 22nd of August, 2005, and are therefore entitled to credit of 591 days.
2 In accordance with Rule 103(C) of the Rules of Procedure and
3 Evidence, you will remain in the custody of the Tribunal pending
4 finalisation of arrangements for your transfer to the state where your
5 sentence will be served.
6 The Trial Chamber stands adjourned.
7 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.09 p.m.
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25