A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

A Second Chance

Drazen Erdemovic, a former soldier in the Bosnian Serb Army, was the first individual to be sentenced by the Hague tribunal, on November 29, 1996. His case made legal history, but it was far from simple.

On July 16, 1995, Erdemovic, a Croat, and other members of the 10th Sabotage Detachment of the Bosnian Serb army, were ordered to a collective farm in Pilica, near Srebrenica. They were informed that buses containing Bosnian Muslim men captured from the safe area of Srebrenica would soon arrive. The men were to be separated into groups of 10 in a nearby field, lined up in a row, and shot dead. Over a thousand Muslims are thought to have been murdered at Pilica.

After the massacre, Erdemovic found that he could not live with himself. He told his story to American journalists and tried to surrender to the Hague tribunal. His attempt was thwarted by the Serbian police, and instead of the Hague he found himself on trial in Serbia for treason. At this point, Western governments exerted so much pressure on the Serbian government that they had no choice but to release him to the tribunal.

Erdemovic’s defense was time-honored and simple -- he had been acting under duress. If he had refused to take part in the killing, he would have been shot. But, as he also told the judges, "It destroyed me. It killed me. I simply thought that my life was worthless after that.”

Erdemovic provided the prosecution with invaluable information about the location of mass gravesites and the Pilica massacre. It was his testimony that led to the court’s conviction of General Krstic for genocide -- another first for the tribunal. But the judges were unwilling to accept the plea of acting under orders, which ran counter to the historic Nuremberg principles and the tribunal statute. So they found him guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to ten years in jail.

Erdemovic appealed the judgment. The Appeals Chamber rejected the appeal but ordered that he be given an opportunity to replead before a different lower Chamber. Four judges felt he had been ill-advised in his first trial to plead guilty to a crime against humanity instead of the less serious charge of war crimes.

At his second trial, the judges took several new factors into consideration, including Erdemovic’s age (26), his ethnic background (Bosnian Croat), character, and remorse. While not questioning his personal responsibility, the judges decided to reward his cooperation by reducing his sentence in half. On  March 5, 1998, he was given a revised sentence of five years, which he completed in 2001.