The political ramifications of several judicial rulings
Nov. 24.─ In the Balkans the big news is who is out of jail, who is in and who is going to court. All the cases are high-profile and all have political fallout. The most significant was the acquittal on November 16th of two Croatian generals by the UN war-crimes tribunal in The Hague. Croats were ecstatic, Serbs bitter.
Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were first convicted in 2011 of conspiring, as part of a "joint criminal enterprise", to drive Serbs out of Croatia's Krajina region. When Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s the Serbs, backed by Serbia and the Yugoslav army, carved out their own mini-state in Krajina. But in 1995 the Croatian army took most of it back. Some 200,000 Serbs fled, most never to return. Nobody denies that war crimes took place. But the acquittal of the two generals means that the court believes there was no organised plan for "ethnically cleansing" the Serbs.
The generals returned home to a heroes' welcome. Mr Gotovina may even enter politics.
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Islamabad, Nov. 20 (EFE).─ El Tribunal Superior de Islamabad ha cerrado por falta de pruebas el caso por blasfemia contra la niña cristiana Rimsha Masih (foto), acusada el pasado agosto de quemar textos sagrados, según ha informado una fuente cercana al caso.