Fourteen NATO leaders, among them US President Bill Clinton, French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, were each sentenced Thursday to 20 years in jail for war crimes committed in the 1999 campaign against Yugoslavia.
The Belgrade court's presiding judge Veroljub Rakitic also said arrest warrants had been issued for the 14 leaders, tried in absentia, who may appeal the verdict two weeks "after they receive the sentence."
From the start of the trial last Monday, proceedings have taken place with 14 empty chairs, bearing the names of the accused -- including US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and other US, European and NATO officials -- placed in front of Rakitic's podium.
The court also decided that the 14 "will be detained upon their arrest," while the sentence would become valid "from the date of the arrest."
The 14 were charged with "inciting an aggressive war, war crimes against the civilian population, use of banned combat means, attempted murder of the Yugoslav president (Slobodan Milosevic), as well as with the violation of the country's territorial integrity."
They were sentenced to all five charges.
Each of the sentences read by Rakitic were followed by applause from the public present at the main Belgrade courtroom.
"Our human criminal law has not anticipated higher sentences, because none could have anticipated such crimes might be committed," Rakitic said, sitting below a photo of Milosevic and the Serbian and Yugoslav state symbols.
The defendants were "found guilty for five criminal deeds which are socially the most dangerous ones," he explained.
They "must pay the costs of the trial in a 15-day period, under threat of forced execution," said the verdict, which is to be delivered to the defendants and their defense lawyers.
At the start of the trial, Rakitic said the accused had all been sent a translated list of the charges through diplomatic channels.
It took three hours for Belgrade prosecutor Andrija Milutinovic to read the 183-page indictment against the leaders, followed by the names of 890 alleged victims of NATO bombings -- 503 civilians, 240 soldiers and 147 Serb policemen.
However, Rakitic said in the verdict that the 14 were guilty for acts that "caused the death of 546 soldiers, 138 policemen and 504 civilians, among them 88 children." No explanation was given for the difference in the figures in the indictment and the verdict.
Yugoslavia, backed by human rights organizations and Russian deputies, has regularly accused NATO of committing war crimes by targeting civilians during the bombing campaign.
But Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in June exonerated NATO, saying the organization had not violated international law in the campaign.
The ICTY has indicted Milosevic for war crimes in Kosovo.
The trial ended just four days ahead of the first round of presidential and legislative elections in the Yugoslav federation.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
