Stanislav Galic Convicted and Sentenced for Strategy to "kill, maim, wound and terrorise the
civilian inhabitants of Sarajevo." RS army guilt in Market Massacre Established.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/5/newsid_2535000/2535435.stm
BBC News | 5 February

On This Day: 1994: Market massacre in Sarajevo

A mortar bomb has exploded in the main market square in Sarajevo killing 68 and wounding 200 people. It is the worst single atrocity in the 22-month old conflict between Bosnia's Serbs, Muslims and Croats.

UN inspectors are examining the crater left by the bomb to determine where it came from, but it is widely believed the Serbian forces besieging the city launched it.

The single 120mm shell landed on a stall in the packed open-air market just before noon leaving Muslims and Serbs dead and injured.

"Some people were literally torn apart. Heads and limbs were ripped off bodies," said one eyewitness.

Kosevo hospital was inundated with victims carried by ambulance, car and lorry, some of them wrapped in the canvas used on the market stalls.

The attack came on the day Bosnian Serb, Muslim and Croatian leaders were meeting in the city to discuss its future.

Peace envoy David Owen said: "We had reached the point where Bosnian Serbs were ready to take Sarajevo outside an overall peace settlement to try to demilitarise it.

"I am absolutely determined it is not aborted."

The mainly Muslim Bosnian Government immediately accused the Serbs of the shelling.

Information minister for the self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic, Miroslav Toholj, denied the charges and blamed the Muslims, saying, "Serbs don't kill civilians".

The Bosnian Serb army has threatened to prevent UN aid distribution unless accusations against them are dropped.

This latest attack came after allied peacekeepers - under new commander General Sir Michael Rose - have taken a stronger line against Serbian aggression.

Altogether 200,000 people have died so far in the war. Food queues and markets have already been targeted.

A mortar killed 16 people queuing for bread in Sarajevo in May 1992.

The western response will be decided at meetings of Nato and the UN over the next few days.
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HELSINKI COMMITTE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN SERBIAÂ
(Excerpt from Dragoljub Todorovic, "Burden of Crime: National Courts
and Justice," Helsinska povelja, no 51 (04/09/2002);

The Serbian public opinion cherishes a stereotype that Bosniaks have
stage-managed the Markale market massacre in Sarajevo. But at the trial of
[Bosnian Serb] General Stanislav Galic, the man in charge of the Sarajevo
siege, the material evidence presented by the top international experts
clearly showed that shelling of Markale and massacre of innocent Sarajevo
residents was committed by the Serb army in the surrounding hills. That
fact was disclosed by all the international media, but the domestic ones
failed to mention it.
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The Daily Telegraph (London)
December 06, 2003, Saturday

General gets 20 years for Sarajevo massacre

By Robin Gedye
Foreign Affairs Writer

A Bosnian Serb general was sentenced to 20 years in jail yesterday for
shelling and shooting civilians in Sarajevo in the first judgment by the
United Nations war crimes court on the 44-month siege.

The Hague tribunal decided by a two-to-one margin that Gen Stanislav
Galic, 60, former commander of the Romanija Corps, implemented a strategy
that used shelling and sniping to "kill, maim, wound and terrorise the
civilian inhabitants of Sarajevo".

Galic helped turn one of Sarajevo's main thoroughfares into the infamous
"snipers' alley" where civilians in trams, cars or simply walking the
streets were shot and bombed by soldiers hiding in the surrounding hills.

The court indictment said his men targeted civilians "tending vegetable
plots, queuing for bread, collecting water, attending funerals, shopping
in markets, riding trams, gathering wood or simply walking with their
children or friends".

This was the first time that The Hague tribunal had passed judgment
in connection with the siege of Sarajevo, in which 10,500 people died,
including 1,800 children, between 1992 and 1995.

It was also the first time that it had ruled on the crime of "terror"
as defined by the Geneva Convention.

Galic, stout and balding, stood impassively in the dock as the judgment
was read convicting him on five counts of crimes against humanity and war
crimes including murder, inhumane acts and "violence intended to spread
terror among civilians".

The court heard that he gave orders resulting in the deaths of at least
108 civilians, including an incident in February 1994 when a 120 mm mortar
shell hit the crowded open-air Markale market, killing 66 people and
wounding 140. "No civilian of Sarajevo was safe anywhere," a summary of
the 300-plus page judgment said.

The court held Galic personally responsible, saying that he not only was
aware of the "unlawful acts of his troops" but that he dictated "the scale
and pace of those crimes".

Muslims in Sarajevo said they were deeply disappointed with the
"inadequate" prison term for a soldier whose troops specialised in
denying people access to food, medicine, water and electricity and
who enjoyed turning whole streets into no-go areas.

"If you have a 20-year sentence for deaths of thousands of people, it
means Galic will only serve a few hours in jail for each of them," said
Jasmin Odobasic, deputy head of the Muslim Commission for Missing Persons.

"Even thinking of the massacre makes me scream. I will never forget
pieces of human flesh scattered all over the place, screams, and people's
limbs being loaded in trucks," said Bera Beslagic, 40, a saleswoman at
the market.

The prosecution had demanded a life sentence for Galic, whose trial
began in December 2001. His co-accused, Dragomir Milosevic, Galic's deputy
who took over the Romanija Corps in August 1994, remains at large.
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