Milan Martić

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Milan Martić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милан Мартић) (born 18 November 1954) is a Serbian politician, convicted of war crimes by the ICTY on June 12, 2007. He led rebel Serbian forces in Croatia during the Croatian War of Independence.

[edit] Biography

Martić was born near Knin and was the local police chief in Knin at the time of Croatia's independence. In 1990, he took on the position of local Serb leader, organizing Martić's Police—a civilian militia. From 4 January 1991 to August 1995, Martić held various leadership positions, including President, Minister of Defence, Minister of Internal Affairs, in the unrecognised offices of the Serbian Autonomous District (SAO) Krajina, and the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK).

Initially indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on 25 July 1995, Martić surrendered on May 15, 2002, and was transferred to the tribunal in The Hague the same day. He was charged with murder, persecutions, inhumane treatment, forced displacement, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages. He pleaded not guilty to all counts.^[1]

According to the ICTY, in the amended indictment, he "helped organize an ethnic cleansing campaign of Croats and other non-Serbs from Krajina where 78,000 lived and virtually the entire non-Serb population was forcibly removed, deported or killed". He was originally charged only with ordering a rocket attack on the Croatian capital of Zagreb which killed seven civilians as retaliation to Operation Flash. Martić later appeared on Serbian television and radio, admitting he ordered the shelling.

Milan Babić who, along with Martić, was one of the most important leaders of rebelled Croatian Serbs, said during Martić's trial that the entire war in Croatia was Martić's responsibility, orchestrated by Belgrade.^[2]

His trial started on December 13, 2005 and ended on January 12, 2007.^[3] On June 12, Martić was sentenced to 35 years in prison.^[1]^[4] The judgment was also especially damaging to the legacy of the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the then Serbian regime as Martić was found to have been part of a "joint criminal enterprise" which included Blagoje Adžić, Milan Babić, Radmilo Bogdanović, Veljko Kadijević, Radovan Karadžić, Slobodan Milošević, Ratko Mladić, Vojislav Šešelj, Franko Simatović, Jovica Stanišić, and Dragan Vasiljković. ^[4]