Trazi Vise
Amicus
Today's "church" has NOTHING to do with religion.
Posts: 3,126
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Post by Trazi Vise on Sept 9, 2009 10:21:38 GMT -5
I read this in THE AGE yesterday while sitting in the gym... We have a duty to find and try war criminalsGideon Boas September 9, 2009 "THE ugly spectre of war criminals in our community is creeping its way back onto the national agenda. A few days ago, Dragan Vasiljkovic (aka ''Captain Dragan'', when he was the leader of the Red Beret paramilitary unit favoured by former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic - or ''Daniel Snedden'', when he was a golf instructor living in Western Australia) walked free from a Sydney jail. Vasiljkovic had been in custody pending the outcome of an extradition request from Croatia to try him for war crimes allegedly committed in Croatia in 1991 and 1992. The Federal Court upheld his application resisting extradition, convinced that he would not receive a fair trial if deported."Dr Gideon Boas is a senior lecturer in the Monash Law School. He was, until October 2006, a senior legal officer at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.continued here: www.theage.com.au/opinion/we-have-a-duty-to-find-and-try-war-criminals-20090908-ffyf.html?page=-1
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tyson
Amicus
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Post by tyson on Sept 10, 2009 0:32:36 GMT -5
ffs, why didnt you just post the whole article here.
wait, i'll do it for you:
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We have a duty to find and try war criminals Gideon Boas September 9, 2009
THE ugly spectre of war criminals in our community is creeping its way back onto the national agenda. A few days ago, Dragan Vasiljkovic (aka ''Captain Dragan'', when he was the leader of the Red Beret paramilitary unit favoured by former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic - or ''Daniel Snedden'', when he was a golf instructor living in Western Australia) walked free from a Sydney jail. Vasiljkovic had been in custody pending the outcome of an extradition request from Croatia to try him for war crimes allegedly committed in Croatia in 1991 and 1992. The Federal Court upheld his application resisting extradition, convinced that he would not receive a fair trial if deported.
I sat opposite Vasiljkovic in a courtroom in The Hague when he testified for the prosecution against Slobodan Milosevic. Over several days of testimony, he changed his story, wriggling out of pinning any links between paramilitary organisations and Milosevic, not to mention avoiding contempt of court charges and an indictment from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for any involvement he might have had in war crimes. It seems Vasiljkovic has once again slipped the net of justice, although he did serve three years on remand fighting the outcome of the extradition request.
Meantime, over in Western Australia, Charles Zentai has become the latest alleged war criminal to contest an extradition request - this time from Hungary. The Hungarian authorities want the 87-year-old to face an allegation of torturing and murdering a Jewish teenager in Budapest in 1944. That matter awaits the outcome of a full Federal Court hearing concluded last week.
Less than two decades ago, Australia endeavoured to weed out and prosecute war criminals who had sought refuge here after WWII. Three elderly Ukrainian men were indicted for the killing of hundreds of Jews, including children. All prosecutions were dismissed or abandoned for a range of reasons typical of trials conducted for offences that were committed decades earlier: evidence is lost, memories fade, witnesses die, are too traumatised to testify or are unable to be located, offenders become old and frail, and all aspects of the reliability of evidence subjected to a criminal standard become attenuated. In war crimes cases, this is accentuated by distance and cross-jurisdictional issues.
There is, however, a disturbing refrain in the story of Australia's involvement in war crimes prosecutions. The fact is that, since trials after WWII of more than 800 Japanese defendants by Australian military tribunals, we have not had a great record of either prosecuting or extraditing war criminals. And there is a sense of dread, following the efforts at prosecution in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the idea of fronting up to the presence of war criminals in our community, let alone identifying them and working out what to do with them.
Zentai and Vasiljkovic are but two of what may be thousands of potential war criminals taking refuge in Australia. The Lowy Institute recently released a report suggesting that a broad range of potential war crimes suspects from several war-affected countries live here and that little is being done by the Commonwealth Government to investigate these cases. The Government's hesitancy is no doubt motivated, at least in part, by the sheer investigative and legal complexity (not to mention cost) in finding and prosecuting war criminals. The extradition applications of Zentai and Vasiljkovic are recent reminders of this.
Australia has, however, ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, indicating its commitment to the trial of war criminals and its dedication to ending impunity for crimes of mass atrocity. We have implemented the statute into domestic legislation and subscribed to the court's jurisdictional structure, which states that we have primary jurisdiction over war criminals found in our territory and that, as a first and preferred option, we should prosecute them. If we are unable or unwilling to prosecute them, we should transfer them to the court.
The alleged crimes of neither Zentai nor Vasiljkovic qualify for prosecution by the International Criminal Court (these crimes were committed before the court's jurisdiction commenced), but that does not prevent Australia fulfilling its obligations under international law. There is a principle, sometimes referred to loosely as universal jurisdiction, which suggests that for crimes such as these, any state on whose territory such an accused resides should either prosecute or extradite. If we cannot extradite, because we cannot be satisfied that an alleged war criminal will receive a fair trial in another country, then we must prosecute them ourselves. The principle is based on a moral imperative: people who commit crimes that offend humanity must be brought to justice and we, like all nations, have a responsibility to honour this simple but profound statement of humanity.
Australia should confront the unpleasant truth about war criminals in our community and move to investigate and prosecute them with dispassion. They must be given a fair and proper trial, and every opportunity to defend their claimed innocence, but they must be tried. The victims of these crimes, some of them refugees in our own country, deserve no less.
Dr Gideon Boas is a senior lecturer in the Monash Law School. He was, until October 2006, a senior legal officer at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
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tyson
Amicus
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Post by tyson on Sept 10, 2009 0:58:20 GMT -5
i agree with what he is saying. thats sramota that this guy is walking free, and wont stand trial for crimes that he is accused of. if australia are so worried about him not receiving a fair trial, then why dont they prosecute him themselves with the assistance of the croatian government?..... australia is not setting a good egsample by letting indicted war criminals go free without facing justice.
i believe this is definately not over
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Post by vinjak on Sept 10, 2009 3:11:39 GMT -5
What is true is that there is nothing to answer for, there is no substance to the allegations otherwise the Hague would have been all over his azz I am damn sure the Australian high court would have taken into consideration if there was evidence against him. Have a look what this Boas numbskull writes, T he alleged crimes of neither Zentai nor Vasiljkovic qualify for prosecution by the International Criminal Court (these crimes were committed before the court's jurisdiction commenced),WTF if that was the case then no Former Jug should have stood trial at the International criminal court.
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CiKoLa
Amicus
Gotovina Heroj!
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Post by CiKoLa on Sept 11, 2009 3:00:29 GMT -5
^^ Vinjak ... the Full bench of the Australian FEDERAL court ruled to let him go. Croatia and the Australian Prosecutors office are appealing the decision to the HIGH court. They have 15 days from the judgment to lodge the appeal.
For all those celebrating, this isnt over just yet. :-)
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Trazi Vise
Amicus
Today's "church" has NOTHING to do with religion.
Posts: 3,126
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Post by Trazi Vise on Sept 12, 2009 23:53:50 GMT -5
www.theage.com.au/national/bosnia-to-seek-extradition-of-accused-war-criminal-20090912-flnb.html*NOTE , Selma is an awesome local Melbourne writer for The Age newspaper. Bosnia to seek extradition of accused war criminalSELMA MILOVANOVIC, SARAJEVO, BOSNIA September 13, 2009 TWO weeks after the Federal Court stopped the extradition of an Australian citizen accused of war crimes to Croatia, ruling he could not have a fair trial, Bosnia is gathering evidence for a possible extradition request to that country over a wartime rape. Dragan Vasiljkovic, 54, now known as Daniel Snedden, this month won an appeal before the full bench of the Federal Court against extradition to Croatia, where he is wanted for questioning over war crimes allegedly committed in Croatia in the early '90s. Snedden is alleged, under the name of Captain Dragan, to have led a paramilitary unit that terrorised the local Croatian population and is alleged to have tortured prisoners of war in a medieval fortress near the town of Knin. In evidence earlier this year before a defamation case Snedden has launched against The Australian newspaper, a Bosnian woman accused Snedden of repeatedly raping her in Zvornik, northern Bosnia, in 1992. The woman, who travelled to Sydney in April to testify in the NSW Supreme Court along with several Croatian men allegedly imprisoned and tortured by Snedden, identified him in court as the ''Captain Dragan'' who repeatedly raped her and watched as other soldiers did so. The Bosnian ambassador to Australia, Damir Arnaut, last night told The Sunday Age in Sarajevo that gathering evidence against Snedden with a view to his possible extradition would be one of his top priorities. He said there was also strong evidence that ''Vasiljkovic operated with his paramilitary death squads in eastern Bosnia until at least 1994''. Vasiljkovic has denied being in Bosnia during the war. Mr Arnaut, currently a legal and constitutional affairs adviser in the Bosnian presidency, said that the Australian Federal Court had ruled Vasiljkovic could not have a fair trial in Croatia, Bosnia was unlikely to face similar problems. ''Bosnia's court dealing with war crimes is staffed with international judges and prosecutors and it has received very high marks on the international level for its professionalism and impartiality,'' Mr Arnaut said. ''As a result, I plan to work with Australian and Croatian authorities to collect evidence for forwarding to Bosnian prosecutors with hope that they will bring charges against Vasiljkovic and request his extradition to Bosnia." A spokesman for the Bosnian Department of Public Prosecutions told Fairfax this week that while prosecutors had information about Snedden's alleged wartime activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he was not currently a suspect. ''We don't have a current investigation into his activites which does not mean it won't happen,'' the spokesman said.
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