Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has sentenced Rasim Delić to three years’ imprisonment for crimes committed by the El Mujahed Detachment of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ABiH) against captive Bosnian Serb soldiers in July and August 1995.

Rasim Delić was the former Commander of the Main Staff of the ABiH and is one of the most senior military commanders to be tried by the Tribunal on charges of superior criminal responsibility.

‘Effective control’ as de jure superior

In its decision of 15 September, the majority of judges (Presiding Judge Moloto dissenting) found Delić guilty of failing to take the necessary and reasonable measures to prevent and punish the crimes of cruel treatment committed by the El Mujahed Detachment (EMD) within the central Bosnian municipality of Zavidovići. Delić was held responsible for crimes committed first in the village of Livade and then in Kamenica Camp where 12 captured members of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS), including a doctor and a paramedic, were held.

During the detention of the prisoners, the Trial Chamber found that the 12 Bosnian Serb soldiers were subjected to severe beatings and forced to witness the display of “freshly severed heads”. One of the detainees, Gojko Vujičić, was subsequently killed in an equally gruesome fashion. At the Kamenica Camp, the VRS detainees were subjected to various other forms of maltreatment and humiliation, including the infliction of electric shocks and beatings.

A key issue in the case was whether the EMD had been “under the command and effective control of Rasim Delić” at the time the atrocities were committed.

The Majority found beyond reasonable doubt that Delić had effective control over the EMD in the period from July until it disbanded in December 1995. The El Mujahed Detachment itself had come into existence by an order which was signed by Delić back in August 1993. The EMD had been a unit which was de jure subordinated to the ABiH 3rd Corps of which Delić was the de jure superior. Consequently, the Majority was satisfied that a superior-subordinate relationship had existed between Delić and the EMD perpetrators of the crimes committed in July and August.

No ‘actual knowledge’

In determining the sentence to be handed down to the former Commander, the Trial Chamber noted that despite the “appallingly brutal nature” of the acts against the 12 VRS detainees, Delić had merely had “imputed knowledge of these crimes as opposed to actual knowledge”.

Regarding the other three counts of murder and cruel treatment which allegedly occurred in separate incidents between 1993 and 1995, Delić was acquitted. In one incident in June 1993, approximately 24 Bosnian Croat civilians and soldiers were killed by the Mujahedin. The Trial Chamber found that at that moment in time no superior-subordinate relationship existed yet between Delić and the perpetrators of the crime.

In a separate incident in September 1995, the EMD killed 52 Bosnian Serb soldiers, but the Trial Chamber could not conclude beyond reasonable doubt that Delić had reason to know that these crimes were about to be—or had been—committed.

Delić will be given credit for the 488 days he has already spent in custody. He is therefore scheduled to be released in early 2010.

Rasim Delić