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Theodor Meron (left) with Serbian Prime Minister Brnabic (right). Photo: MICT.

The president of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, Theodor Meron, challenged Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic during their meeting in Belgrade on Tuesday over her denial that the Srebrenica massacres constituted genocide.

“It does not help the government of Serbia to challenge judgements of a major international criminal tribunal,” Meron told Brnabic, according to a MICT press release.

He said that “numerous judgements” before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY made it “absolutely clear that the crimes committed in Srebrenica in 1995 constituted the crime of genocide”.

Brnabic denied that the July 1995 massacres of Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces were an act of genocide in an interview on November 14 with the German international public broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

“No, I do not think that the terrible massacre at Srebrenica was genocide,” she said told Deutsche Welle’s ‘Conflict Zone’ programme.

The Bosnian Serb Army under the command of Ratko Mladic captured the town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, then killed more than 7,000 men and boys from the enclave.

The crime was ruled an act of genocide by the International Court of Justice as well as the ICTY.

The ICTY and domestic courts have sentenced 45 people to a total of 699 years in prison – plus three life sentences – for genocide, crimes against humanity and other offences against Bosniaks in Srebrenica in July 1995.

Mladic was sentenced to life in prison for the genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica, war crimes and crimes against humanity under a first-instance verdict in 2017.

The Hague-based court also convicted former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 40 years in prison in 2016. Both men are appealing against the verdicts.

Meron expressed “disagreement and disappointment” with Brnabic’s interview and suggested that “legal interpretations of international crimes better be left to international criminal tribunals”.

The Serbian government issued a press release about the meeting between Brnabic and Meron without mentioning the MICT president’s criticism of her claims about Srebrenica.

The press release focused instead on the topic of prison conditions for Serb war crimes convicts.

Meron is on his last tour of former Yugoslav countries before he retires on January 18 next year. His position will be filled by judge Carmel Agius.

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