The Second Srebrenica Trial: Prosecutor v. Vidoje Blagojević and Dragan Jokić

Abstract

In its judgment issued on 17 January 2005, in Prosecutor v. Vidoje Blagojević and Dragan Jokić, Trial Chamber I, Section A, found that genocide had been committed against the Bosnian Muslim population following the fall of the Srebrenica ‘safe area’ in July 1995. The Trial Chamber's findings that forcible transfer, when combined with other acts, can constitute an underlying act of genocide (namely, causing serious mental harm to members of a group) contributes to a growing body of jurisprudence on genocide. The Trial Chamber found the accused guilty of such serious crimes as complicity in genocide, extermination, persecutions and murder. It determined that the appropriate mode of liability for each was aiding and abetting rather than committing through participation in a joint criminal enterprise, Accordingly the Trial Chamber sentenced Vidoje Blagojević to 18 years' imprisonment and Dragan Jokić to nine years' imprisonment.