That Someone Guilty Be Punished - International Center for ...

While some of our Bosnian interlocutors agree with the ICTY’s reasoning, many victims find
this very claim insensitive to their suffering.
As of September 2009, 20 defendants had pleaded guilty before the ICTY. Because two
plea arrangements loomed especially large in our interviews, we address Bosnians’ perceptions
of those two cases before broadening our discussion.
1. Dražen Erdemović
In February 1996, a young Bosnian Croat who had served with Bosnian Serb forces during the
1990s war, Dražen Erdemović, told ABC News and Le Figaro that he had participated in the
execution of some 1,200 Muslim male civilians in the aftermath of the fall of Srebrenica. By
his own account, Erdemović personally killed approximately 70 of the victims at the Branjevo
farm near Pilica on July 16, 1995. 330 On March 2, 1996, Erdemović was arrested by Yugoslav
authorities; soon after, he was indicted by the ICTY prosecutor. The day after his indictment,
Erdemović became the only ICTY suspect transferred by Yugoslav authorities to The Hague
during the regime of Slobodan Milošević. 331
At his initial appearance before the ICTY on May 31, 1996, Erdemović also became the
first suspect to enter a guilty plea, in this case pleading guilty to the count of murder as a
crime against humanity. Six weeks later, he testified in proceedings against Ratko Mladić and
Radovan Karadžić, and would later provide testimony that was important to other prosecutions
of senior suspects. 332 At his sentencing hearing in November 1996, Erdemović expressed his
profound remorse: “I wish to say that I feel sorry for all the victims, not only for the ones who
were killed at that farm, I feel sorry for all the victims in the former Bosnia and Herzegovina
regardless of their nationality.” 333
On November 29, 1996, ICTY Trial Chamber I sentenced Erdemović to ten years in
prison, taking into account that “the accused surrendered voluntarily to the International Tribunal,
confessed, pleaded guilty, showed sincere and genuine remorse or contrition and stated
his willingness to supply evidence with probative value against other individuals for crimes
falling within the jurisdiction of the International Tribunal.” 334 After ruling that Erdemović’s
plea had not been fully informed, the Appeals Chamber remanded his case to a different trial
chamber. 335 Erdemović entered a new guilty plea, and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
336 While recognizing that a key responsibility of the ICTY is to express the international
community’s outrage at the kind of crimes in which Erdemović participated, Trial Chamber II
noted countervailing considerations in this case:
It is in the interests of international criminal justice and the purposes of the International
Tribunal to give appropriate weight to the cooperative attitude of the accused. He
truthfully confessed his involvement in the massacre at a time when no authority was
seeking to prosecute him in connection therewith, knowing that he would most prob-
58 ACHIEVEMENTS, FAILURES, AND PERFORMANCE