ICTY begins war crimes trial of former high-level Bosnian Serb officials News
ICTY begins war crimes trial of former high-level Bosnian Serb officials

[JURIST] The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] on Monday began the trial [press release] of former high ranking Bosnian Serb officials Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin [ICTY materials]. Stanisic, former Bosnian Serb interior minister, and Zupljanin, a former regional police chief, are charged [indictment, PDF] with persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, and torture of non-Serb civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. The two are accused of taking part in a criminal enterprise that also included Momcilo Krajisnik, Radovan Karadzic, Biljana Plavsic, and Ratko Mladic [JURIST news archives]. Stanisic and Zupljanin allegedly had direct control over the Serbian forces that carried out the plan to eliminate Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats, and other non-Serbs from the territory of the planned Serbian state.

A prosecution motion to have the cases of Stanisic and Zupljanin joined was granted in September 2008, and both men pleaded not guilty in November. Zupljanin was arrested in June 2008 by Serbian authorities and transferred [JURIST report] to the ICTY for trial. Stanisic surrendered to the ICTY in March 2005. Stanisic was originally indicted by the ICTY in 2005, and Zupljanin was indicted in 1999.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Fyodor Dostoevsky sentenced to death

Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to death on November 16, 1849 over his involvement in the progressive Petrashevsky Circle of intellectuals. Dostoevsky and his codefendants were scheduled to be executed on December 22 of that year, but their execution was stayed by Tsar Nicholas I after the execution ritual had been carried out. Dostoevsky was sent to Siberia instead to serve a four-year sentence. Learn more about the mock execution of Dostoevsky.

Canada executed Metis leader for treason

On November 16, 1885, the Canadian government executed Metis leader Louis Riel for high treason in the wake of the "Northwest Rebellion" that had pitted the Metis (descendants of French traders and native tribes) in what is now Saskatchewan against Canadian troops. Although Riel has lately been rehabilitated as an Indigenous francophone patriot of the Canadian West, his trial and execution remain sore points between English and French Canada.

US President Nixon signs Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act

On November 16, 1973, US President Richard Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act into law. In addition to creating an oil pipeline across the state, the Act also quashed all environmental-legal challenges regarding its construction.