PROTECTED DOCUMENTS LEAKED: SERBIA'S DEAL WITH THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (CNAB) recently published two confidential court decisions allowing Serbia to censor the most incriminating evidence showing Serbia's direct involvement in the Srebrenica genocide.

The sensitive information included confidential orders by the court in the Slobodan Milosevic trial, not to publicise documents that implicate the Serbian state in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, in which at least 8,372 Bosniaks were summarily executed and 30,000 forcibly expelled in a mass scale ethnic cleansing.

CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS:
1. ICTY SER 2005_0702100347_001 (351 kb / .pdf)
2. ICTY SER 2006_0702100337_001 (621 kb / .pdf)

According to the Bosnian Institute, "the ICTY had begun its own investigation into this leak. The letters asked all those who had received the allegedly protected documents to destroy them, and forbade their further copying and distribution."

As CNAB noted in its letter to the ICTY, "The purpose of the secret agreement was clearly to hide the most relevant evidence which confirms the involvement of Serbia and Montenegro in organizing, planning and executing the aggression, war crimes, and genocide against the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Protective measures were authorized to Serbia and Montenegro in order to protect their national and state interests."

According to Marlise Simons, "Serbia, the heir to Yugoslavia, obtained court permission to keep parts of the archives out of the public eye, citing national security. Its lawyers lacked out many sensitive - those who have seen them say incriminating - pages... Now, lawyers and others who were involved in Serbia's bid for secrecy say that, at the time, Belgrade made its true objective clear: to keep the full military archives from another court, the International Court of Justice, nearby. And they say Belgrade's goal was achieved in February, when that court, dealing with Bosnia's lawsuit against Serbia, declared Serbia not guilty of genocide, and absolved it from paying potentially enormous war damages." (Serbia's Darkest Pages Hidden from Genocide Court)

Currently, a French journalist, Florence Hartmann is facing trial at the ICTY that employed her from 1999 until 2006 - as spokeswoman for the former chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte - on two counts of contempt of court for revealing details of the same two decisions in an article, Vital Genocide Documents Concealed, published on the website of the Bosnian Institute on January 21, 2008. We stand in support of Florence Hartmann.