LUKIĆ: THEY SHOULD HAVE ALLOWED MLADIĆ TO RECEIVE MEDICAL TREATMENT

BELGRADE, DECEMBER 25 /SRNA/ – The Hague court should have released General Ratko Mladić for medical treatment under more humane conditions if there were even a shred of humanity among those making the decisions, Branko Lukić, a lawyer from Mladić's defense team, stated for SRNA.

Lukić said that both during the trial and after the verdicts, the Hague Tribunal demonstrated itself to be a court without honor, which is most evident in its treatment of Serbian convicts, particularly General Mladić. "It is unbelievable that, despite his catastrophic health condition, they insist on keeping him in a detention unit that has absolutely no conditions for providing adequate medical care," Lukić stressed. He said he is in daily contact with General Mladić's son, Darko Mladić, adding that "General Ratko Mladić, who suffers from numerous illnesses, is literally like a leaf in the wind". "The Hague court should have released General Mladić for treatment under humane conditions yesterday, not tomorrow," Lukić said. He pointed out that the treatment of other convicted Serbs is no more humane, emphasizing that the first president of Republika Srpska Radovan Karadžić is in catastrophic condition and has been left in the custody of the British, who, for reasons known only to them, feel the need to take revenge on the Serb people. Lukić added that the Hague Tribunal has been discredited by the international community itself. "The fact that its rulings are no longer allowed to be used at all clearly shows that it has left no trace in international legal practice, but rather represents a dead end that has been discarded in the trash bin of legal history," Lukić pointed out. He stressed that this is precisely why the struggle to establish the true character of the war in BiH and the events in Srebrenica must never be abandoned, because those who claim that genocide occurred there have failed to prove it. Lukić said that the academic community, legal practitioners and scholars continue to seek the truth and that, as time passes, "the chances of establishing the truth are growing, and the position of the stigmatized Serb people is improving". "We must continue this fight and never give up, especially because they rely on the rulings of the Hague Tribunal, which have no right to be used in international law or before any other court, precisely because they were made on the basis of politics, not evidence," Lukić concluded.