ICTY Sentences Serb Leader to 35 Years

The ICTY sentenced Milan Martic, the former leader of a breakaway Serb enclave in Croatia, to 35 years in prison for his “ethnic cleansing” of non-Serbs as part of a broader plan to create a Greater Serbia. A summary of the judgment is here. Interestingly, the bulk of Martic’s convictions stem from a finding that he participated in former Serb President Milosevic’s plan to create a greater Serb state by using violence to drive non-Serbs out. The Court doesn’t call this plan “genocide” but it certainly was a joint criminal enterprise of some sort.

Will any of this evidence affect Croatia’s long moribund application to hold Serbia liable for “genocide” in the International Court of Justice? Maybe. But similar evidence did not help Bosnia, so it seems unlikely.