Bizarre case of activist incarcerated in The Hague
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Florence Hartmann, former spokeswoman of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, on March 24, 2016, is arrested before the reading of the verdict Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic. (photos by AFP)
A female activist who has devoted her life to exposure of war criminals is currently under 24-hour fluorescent light behind bars at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
According to Press TV, Florence Hartmann, a former journalist with Le Monde who later served as the spokeswoman for Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, was arrested by UN police on the grassy area outside the court, despite efforts by Bosnia war survivors to protect her.
They had gathered to wait for a verdict on crimes committed by former Bosnian Serb Leader Radovan Karadžić over his crimes throughout the Bosnian war in 1992-95.
The court found the 70-year guilty of genocide and nine other charges, sentencing him to 40 years in prison, announcing he “bears individual criminal responsibility” for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which some 8,000 Muslim boys and men were slaughtered in the course of four days.
Outside the court on that day, cops were trying to contain “women from Srebrenica and survivors from the camps who were trying to protect” Hartmann, she said in a private phone call from detention later.
Hartman said she was appalled by “watching General Ratko Mladić [an accused Bosnian Serb military leader] walking around the yard and associating with other prisoners while I’m locked away in a cage.
“The outrageous thing was to see the UN and Dutch police kick away women from Srebrenica and survivors from the camps who were trying to protect me from arrest, after all they’ve been through.”
The 53-year-old was originally convicted of contempt of court in 2009 over claims that the tribunal was withholding significant information in regard to the 1995 massacre.
ME
