Witness in Srebrenica massacre case found dead in Hague hotel
Dusan Dunjic, a forensic pathologist from Belgrade, was a defence witness in the genocide and war crimes case against former Bosnian Serb general.
As the Ukrayinska Pravda (Ukrainian Truth) Ukrainian media outlet reports referring to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the body of Dunjic was found by a hotel staff member and a representative of the tribunal on October 22. On that day, Dunjic was to testify as a defence witness in the case against general Ratko Mladic, who faces 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity within three-year civil war in the early 1990s, including the Srebrenica massacre.
Earlier, Dunjic on numerous occasions testified as a defence witness and a prosecution witness in the trials of others accused before the tribunal.
As a reminder, former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic was arrested in May 2011. The ICC’s trial of him began in May 2012. Mladic is accused of the war crimes committed during the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992-1995. He is charged with the murder of nearly 8,000 people in Srebrenica in 1995 and coordination of the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted about 3.5 years killing over 10,000 people.
July 2015, the UN Security Council following the stance of Russia postponed the vote on the resolution condemning the Srebrenica ethnic cleansing as “genocide.” Russia, which has close religious and cultural ties with Serbia, opposed the resolution, calling its wording unacceptable.
In October, the International Criminal Court initiated the investigation into the armed conflict in South Ossetia in 2008. According to Ukrainian human rights defender Volodymyr Yavorsky, this case is very important for Ukraine as it will show whether it is possible to bring the military of the Russian Federation to justice.
