YouSaid · the spoken record

Čedomir Backović

lines on the record
57
first
2020-06-08
most recent
2020-12-14
sittings or episodes
2
sources
un-security-council

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  1. “Nevertheless, the Tribunal and the Mechanism have sentenced to life imprisonment the following Serbian citizens: Stanislav Galić, Ljubiša Beara, Vujadin Popović and Zdravko Tolimir, and they have handed down a first-instance sentence to Ratko Mladić, while Milan Lukić and Radovan Karadžić were sentenced to life imprisonment as persons of Serbian nationality who are not citizens of Serbia. During that period, Serbia provided for a sentence of up to 40 years in prison for the most serious crimes. The only conclusion that can be drawn here is that the Tribunal made those decisions in contravention of its statute. No grievance mechanism is provided for such treatment.”

    2020-06-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/527 (2020) · source

  2. “The first problem concerns non-compliance with the provisions of the updated ICTY statute of September 2009. In its article 24, on penalties, paragraph 1 states: “The penalty imposed by the Trial Chamber shall be limited to imprisonment. In determining the terms of imprisonment, the Trial Chambers shall have recourse to the general practice regarding prison sentences in the courts of the former Yugoslavia”. That updated statute is available to all on the Tribunal’s website.”

    2020-06-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/527 (2020) · source

  3. “Of the remaining proceedings related to Serbia’s cooperation with the Mechanism, first-instance proceedings in the retrial of Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović are in progress, as well as the appeal procedure in the case of Ratko Mladić. I wish first of all to talk about the problems related to the imposition of prison sentences and the initiative of serving sentences in Serbia, the early release of persons who have served two thirds of their prison sentence, and a kind of illegal monitoring and control of persons after their release. The expiration of the deadline for resolving the issues that Serbia’s Minister of Justice had raised previously is evident. I am not hopeful that much will change in that sense, but I also feel a responsibility to present it to the Council until those issues are resolved.”

    2020-06-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/527 (2020) · source

  4. “I see this prolongation as an opportunity to resolve the remaining issues, to which there has been no answer so far. I would like to reiterate that, in cooperation with the ICTY and the Mechanism, Serbia provided the Prosecution with free access to all evidence, documents, archives and witnesses. Cooperation with the Mechanism is going smoothly. Almost all of the requests received have been resolved, and requests of a more recent date are also in the process of being resolved. Answers and documentation from the archives of Serbia’s State authorities are being submitted to the Office of the Prosecutor of the Mechanism, court Chambers and the Registry of the Mechanism in a timely manner. Witnesses have been released from the duty to keep State, official and military secrets.”

    2020-06-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/527 (2020) · source

  5. “Once again, we are analysing the results of the work of the Mechanism, which is due to fold in the foreseeable future. Not so long ago, in December 2017, the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ceased to exist, too. The Mechanism, which should not only end the remaining proceedings but also resolve all disputed issues related to the serving of sentences, possible revisions of the proceedings or issues related to archives, has not yet fully achieved any of its goals. I will mention only the key issues that remained unanswered in my country’s cooperation with the Mechanism. It can be seen from the third review report on the work of the Mechanism (S/2020/309, annex) and the regular six-month report that the completion of the proceedings has been postponed to April 2021.”

    2020-06-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/527 (2020) · source

  6. “For a quarter of a century, efforts have been made to sanction the consequences of the bloody destruction of Yugoslavia through the mechanisms of international justice. Serbia has made a great contribution in this regard. It extradited to international justice the highest officials and military officers of its former State. No other State has done that. As such, the revisionist history conclusion seeking to attribute greatest responsibility to Serbia and the Serbian people cannot be drawn. Simply put, other States did not do it voluntarily and the international community did not find a mechanism to force them to do so. Many open issues and unpunished crimes therefore remain. That fact casts a shadow over the effectiveness of this body and its very existence.”

    2020-06-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/527 (2020) · source

  7. “I thank you, Sir, for the opportunity to address the Security Council on behalf of Serbia and participate in the present video-teleconference convened to consider the regular six-monthly report on the work of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) (S/2020/309, annex). Let me point out at the beginning of my statement that, despite the state of emergency declared to counter the spread of the coronavirus disease, Serbia informed the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals as promptly as possible that it would cooperate and continue to supervise persons on temporary release under the conditions specified in the decisions of the Trial Chambers of the Mechanism.”

    2020-06-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/527 (2020) · source