Momčilo Krajišnik (; 20 January 1945 – 15 September 2020) was a
Bosnian Serb political leader, who along with
Radovan Karadžić co-founded the Bosnian Serb nationalist
Serb Democratic Party (SDS).
Between 1990 and 1992, he was speaker of the
People's Assembly of
Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, lit=Serb Republic, also known as Republic of Srpska, ) is one of the two Political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Feder ...
. Between June and December 1992, Krajišnik also served as a member of the expanded Presidency of Republika Srpska. After the
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War ( sh, Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started ...
, he was elected
Serb member of the tripartite
Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Predsjedništvo Bosne i Hercegovine, separator=" / ", Предсједништво Босне и Херцеговине) is a three-member body which collectively serves as head of state of ...
in the
September 1996 election and served in that post from October 1996 until October 1998. He lost his bid for re-election in 1998 to
Živko Radišić
Živko Radišić ( sr-Cyrl, Живко Радишић, ; 15 August 1937 – 5 September 2021) was a Bosnian Serb politician who served as the 2nd Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1998 to 2002.
Previously, from 1977 u ...
.
In 2006, Krajišnik was found guilty of committing
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
during the Bosnian War (1992–95) by the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal ...
(ICTY) and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
He was later granted early release on 1 September 2013 and returned to Republika Srpska. Krajišnik died on 15 September 2020, in
Banja Luka
Banja Luka ( sr-Cyrl, Бања Лука, ) or Banjaluka ( sr-Cyrl, Бањалука, ) is the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the largest city of Republika Srpska. Banja Luka is also the ''de facto'' capital of this entity. I ...
, as a result of complications caused by
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
.
Early life
An ethnic Serb, Krajišnik was born in Zabrđe, a village near
Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...
in central
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
.
Political developments in Bosnia leading to the war
On 15 October 1991, the parliament of
SR Bosnia and Herzegovina passed a resolution on the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in spite of strong opposition from Bosnian Serb deputies. Ten days later, the
Serb Democratic Party (SDS) formed a Bosnian Serb Assembly, with Momčilo Krajišnik acting as its president. The Bosnian Serb Assembly began establishing parallel government structures.
Participation in the Dayton negotiations
Krajišnik took part in the negotiations leading to the
Dayton Agreement. He earned the nickname "Mr. No" for his uncompromising stance during negotiations.
About that period,
Richard Holbrooke noted in his memoirs:
Indictment by the ICTY and arrest
![Pope John Paul II and President Alija Izetbegović in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1997](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Pope_John_Paul_II_and_President_Alija_Izetbegovi%C4%87_in_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina%2C_1997.jpg)
Krajišnik was indicted by the ICTY on various charges of
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
- namely extermination, murder, persecution, deportation, and forced transfer, murder as a
war crime, and
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
- in relation to acts committed in 1992 in
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
by
Bosnian Serb forces. He was tracked by French intelligence special forces
13e RDP
The 13e Régiment de Dragons Parachutistes ( en, 13th Parachute Dragoon Regiment) or 13e RDP is a special reconnaissance regiment of the French Army. It is a unit of the French Army Special Forces Command, the latter itself being under the Spec ...
. He was arrested on 3 April 2000 at
Pale
Pale may refer to:
Jurisdictions
* Medieval areas of English conquest:
** Pale of Calais, in France (1360–1558)
** The Pale, or the English Pale, in Ireland
*Pale of Settlement, area of permitted Jewish settlement, western Russian Empire (179 ...
by French SEALs
Commando Hubert
The Commandos Marine are the Special Operation Forces (SOF) of the French Navy. The Commandos Marine are nicknamed ''Bérets Verts'' (Green Berets). They operate under the Sailor Riflemen and Special Operations Forces Command (FORFUSCO) and ...
which were part of
SFOR.
Conviction by the ICTY
On 27 September 2006 Krajišnik was convicted of the following crimes against humanity: extermination, murder, persecution, deportation, and forced transfer. He was acquitted of the charges of murder as a war crime, genocide, and
complicity in genocide Complicity in genocide is illegal under international law both for individuals, as part of international criminal law, and state parties to the Genocide Convention. The latter was first held in the Bosnian genocide case (2007) in which the Internati ...
. He was sentenced to 27 years imprisonment.
ICTY judges found that Krajišnik had been part of a joint criminal enterprise which carried out the extermination, murder, persecution and deportation of non-Serbs during the Bosnian war between 1992 and 1995.
Judge
Alphons Orie
Alphonsus "Alphons" Martinus Maria Orie (born 23 November 1947) is a Dutch jurist specialising in criminal law and a former judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), who presided over many Trial Chamber cas ...
observed that "Krajišnik's role in the commission of the crimes was crucial ... His positions within the Bosnian Serb leadership gave him the authority to facilitate the military, police and paramilitary groups to implement the objective of the joint criminal enterprise". He noted "Mr Krajišnik... accepted that a heavy price of suffering, death and destruction was necessary to achieve Serb domination."
Krajišnik was acquitted of genocide or complicity in genocide on the grounds that the court had found no evidence of a
genocidal intent
Genocidal intent is the ''mens rea'' for the crime of genocide. "Intent to destroy" is one of the elements of the crime of genocide according to the 1948 Genocide Convention. There are some analytic differences between the concept of intent under n ...
on his part to destroy in full or part ethnic or religious communities. This decision was greeted with anger by representatives of victims of crimes of which Krajišnik had been found guilty, who found his acquittal on the charge of genocide difficult to accept.
Bakira Hasečić of the
Association of Women Victims of War, an organisation which campaigns for the prosecution of those responsible for the use of rape as a weapon of war that was a feature of the ethnic cleansing campaign, commented that "The sentence is a major blow to justice. It is an insult for the victims."
On 17 March 2009 the charges of murder and extermination were dropped and the sentence was reduced to 20 years. While the ICTY judges found that while there was evidence that crimes committed in Bosnia constituted the criminal act of genocide (''
actus reus
(), sometimes called the external element or the objective element of a crime, is the Law Latin term for the "guilty act" which, when proved beyond a reasonable doubt in combination with the ("guilty mind"), produces criminal liability in th ...
''), they did not establish that the accused possessed
genocidal intent
Genocidal intent is the ''mens rea'' for the crime of genocide. "Intent to destroy" is one of the elements of the crime of genocide according to the 1948 Genocide Convention. There are some analytic differences between the concept of intent under n ...
, or was part of a criminal enterprise that had such an intent (''
mens rea
In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action (or lack of action) would cause a crime to be committed. It is considered a necessary element ...
'').
[
According to Edina Bećirević, both Krajišnik and Radovan Karadžić were warned by Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladić, also indicted on genocide charges, that their "plans" could not be committed without committing genocide:
]
Imprisonment and release
In 2009, Krajišnik was transferred to the UK under the UK's enforcement agreements with the ICTY to serve his sentence at HM Prison Belmarsh. In 2010, after a single year in prison, he filed a request for early release, which was rejected, as in practice the ICTY considers early release only after two thirds of the original sentence is served, unlike the UK where it is often considered after only half of the sentence is served.
In 2011, another request for early release was made, according to Krajišnik's brother, Mirko, in response to a British government initiative. Krajišnik said that the ICTY had received a proposal from the UK's Ministry of Justice that Momčilo Krajišnik, as a person serving a sentence in the UK, should apply for premature release based on the fact that he had served half his sentence. He had at that point been in prison both at The Hague and then in the UK since 3 April 2000.
On 1 September 2013, he was released from prison and went back to Republika Srpska after being granted early release by ICTY President Theodor Meron
Theodor Meron, (born 28 April 1930) is an Israeli-American judge. He served as a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the International Residual Me ...
, having served two thirds of his 20 year sentence. After arriving in Banja Luka
Banja Luka ( sr-Cyrl, Бања Лука, ) or Banjaluka ( sr-Cyrl, Бањалука, ) is the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the largest city of Republika Srpska. Banja Luka is also the ''de facto'' capital of this entity. I ...
, a government helicopter flew him home to his wartime stronghold of Pale
Pale may refer to:
Jurisdictions
* Medieval areas of English conquest:
** Pale of Calais, in France (1360–1558)
** The Pale, or the English Pale, in Ireland
*Pale of Settlement, area of permitted Jewish settlement, western Russian Empire (179 ...
, where thousands of people welcomed him home. His supporters arrived by bus from across Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, lit=Serb Republic, also known as Republic of Srpska, ) is one of the two Political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Feder ...
and convoys of cars were on the streets of Pale with people waving Serbian flags, honking horns, and stopping at the main square as Serb nationalist songs were played. He then told reporters: "It's like a dream. You have no idea how beautiful this country is". He added that he was surprised by his welcome, as "after all, I am 'a war criminal'".
Death
On 29 August 2020, Krajišnik was taken to the Banja Luka
Banja Luka ( sr-Cyrl, Бања Лука, ) or Banjaluka ( sr-Cyrl, Бањалука, ) is the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the largest city of Republika Srpska. Banja Luka is also the ''de facto'' capital of this entity. I ...
hospital after it was confirmed that he tested positive for COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Bosnia and Herzegovina
The COVID-19 pandemic in Bosnia and Herzegovina is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The virus was confirmed to have reached Bosnia and Herzegovina on ...
. The next day, on 30 August, his condition worsened and was put on a ventilator to help him breathe. Krajišnik died on 15 September 2020, in Banja Luka, as a result of complications caused by COVID-19.
References
External links
BBC News Profile on Momčilo Krajišnik
BBC News, 27 September 2006
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krajisnik, Momcilo
1945 births
2020 deaths
Politicians from Sarajevo
Members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina convicted of crimes against humanity
Politicians of the Bosnian War
Politicians of Republika Srpska
Speakers of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska
People convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Serb Democratic Party (Bosnia and Herzegovina) politicians
Serbian nationalists
Heads of state convicted of war crimes
Heads of government who were later imprisoned
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Serbian people convicted of murder