Nikola Jorgić (1946 – 8 June 2014) was a

Bosnian Serb The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sr-Cyrl, Срби Босне и Херцеговине, Srbi Bosne i Hercegovine), often referred to as Bosnian Serbs ( sr-cyrl, босански Срби, bosanski Srbi) or Herzegovinian Serbs ( sr-cyrl, � ...

from the

Doboj Doboj ( sr-Cyrl, Добој, ) is a city in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated on the banks of the Bosna (river), Bosna river, in the northern region of Republika Srpska. As of 2013, it has a population of 71,441 inhabita ...

region who was a soldier of a paramilitary group located in his native area. On 26 September 1997, he was convicted of

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

in Germany. This was the first conviction won against participants in the Bosnian Genocide. Jorgić was sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment for his involvement in the

Bosnian genocide The Bosnian genocide () took place during the Bosnian War of 1992–1995 and included both the Srebrenica massacre and the wider crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War, ethnic cleansing campaign perpetrated throughout ar ...

Background

The found that the paramilitary group had joined in the Bosnian Serb government's activities. Jorgić, who had been a resident of Germany from May 1969 until 1992, was responsible for multiple crimes. Among his actions was the massacre in Grabska, where 22 villagers – including the elderly and disabled – were executed before the rest of the villagers were expelled. He was also deemed responsible for the death of seven villagers in Sevarlije. His appeal following his conviction was rejected by the

Federal Court of Justice The Federal Court of Justice ( , ) is the highest court of Private law, civil and Criminal law, criminal jurisdiction in Germany. Its primary responsibility is the final appellate review of decisions by lower courts for errors of law. While, le ...

(the federal supreme court) on 30 April 1999. The court stated that genocide is a crime which all nations must prosecute; although the Bosnian criminal courts and 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 in the Yugoslav Wars, war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to tr ...

had primacy, both had declined to hear the case, and thus it fell to the German courts to apply the doctrine of

universal jurisdiction Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows Sovereign state, states or International organization, international organizations to prosecute individuals for serious crimes, such as genocide, War crime, war crimes, and crimes against hu ...

under the

Genocide Convention The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was ...

. The

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The court hears applications alleging that a co ...

heard Jorgić's appeal in 2007 on the grounds that they had no jurisdiction (meaning the German courts were neither "competent", contrary to Article 5, nor "established by law", contrary to Article 6); that their refusal to summon certain witnesses abroad rendered his trial unfair, contrary to Article 6; and that their interpretation of the crime of genocide was too broad and the proper interpretation did not extend to his actions, amounting to a violation of article 7. The court deferred to the German courts' assessment of domestic provisions on jurisdiction, finding that they had reasonable grounds to claim jurisdiction under international law, thus there was no breach of Article 5 or 6. They also ruled the Article 6 claim on the grounds of unexamined evidence to be "manifestly ill-founded" and therefore inadmissible. In relation to the article 7 claim, the ECtHR stated that ethnic cleansing constituted

: interpreting genocidal intent as including the destruction of a group as a social unit, rather than restricting it to physical destruction, was "consistent with the essence" of the offence of genocide. "National Inquirity into Missing and Murdered Ingenous Woman and Girls", "A Legal Analysis of Genocide"
page 22–23. Jorgić died in prison in 2014.

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References

ttp://www.preventgenocide.org/aboutus Prevent Genocide International

Background

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Further reading