Unrepentant Mladic sentenced to life for Bosnia atrocities

An unrepentant Ratko Mladic, the bullish Bosnian Serb general whose forces rained shells and snipers' bullets on Sarajevo and carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, was convicted Wednesday of genocide and other crimes and sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

FILE - In this July 12, 1995 photo, Bosnian Serb army Commander General Ratko Mladic, left, drinks toast with Dutch U.N Commander Tom Karremans, second right, while others unidentified look on in village of Potocari, some 5 kilometers (3 miles) north of Srebrenica. Ratko Mladic will learn his fate on Nov. 22, 2017, when U.N. judges deliver verdicts in his genocide and war crimes trial. (AP Photo)

Defiant to the last, Mladic was ejected from a courtroom at the United Nations' Yugoslav war crimes tribunal after yelling at judges: "Everything you said is pure lies. Shame on you!"

He was dispatched to a neighboring room to watch on a TV screen as Presiding Judge Alphons Orie pronounced him guilty of 10 counts that also included war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Human-rights organizations hailed the convictions as proof that even top military brass long considered untouchable cannot evade justice forever. Mladic spent years on the run before his arrest in 2011.

FILE - In this April 9, 1994 file photo, former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, right, leaves the UN headquarters at Sarajevo airport after talks with the UN General, Sir Michael Rose and Bosnian Commander Rasim Delic. Ratko Mladic will learn his fate on Nov. 22, 2017, when U.N. judges deliver verdicts in his genocide and war crimes trial. (AP Photo/Enric Marti, File)

"This landmark verdict marks a significant moment for international justice and sends out a powerful message around the world that impunity cannot and will not be tolerated," said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's Europe director.

For prosecutors, it was a fitting end to a 23-year effort to mete out justice at the U.N. tribunal for atrocities committed during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s. Mladic's conviction signaled the end of the final trial before the tribunal closes its doors by the end of the year.

Bosnian Serb men watch a live broadcast of former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic's trial in Sokolac, Bosnia, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017.  (AP Photo/Radul Radovanovic)

But legal battles will continue. Mladic's attorneys vowed to appeal his convictions on 10 charges related to a string of atrocities from the beginning of the 1992-95 Bosnian war to its bitter end.

FILE - A May 29, 2011 file photo shows Bosnian Serb protesters holding posters depicting former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic, during a protest in Mladic's hometown of Kalinovik, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ratko Mladic will learn his fate on Nov. 22, 2017, when U.N. judges deliver verdicts in his genocide and war crimes trial. (AP Photo/Amel Emric, File)

"The defense team considers this judgment to be erroneous, and there will be an appeal, and we believe that the appeal will correct the errors of the trial chamber," Mladic lawyer Dragan Ivetic said.

Mladic's son, Darko, said his father told him after the verdict that the tribunal was a "NATO commission ... trying to criminalize a legal endeavor of Serbian people in times of civil war to protect itself from the aggression."

Presiding Judge Alphons Orie started the hearing by reading out a litany of horrors perpetrated by forces under Mladic's control.

Dragan Ivetic, lawyer for former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, is interviewed in front of the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal where the court is scheduled to hand down the verdict in the genocide case against Mladic, in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017.(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

"Detainees were forced to rape and engage in other degrading sexual acts with one another. Many Bosnian Muslim women who were unlawfully detained were raped," Orie said.

The judge recounted the story of a mother who ventured into the streets during the deadly siege of Sarajevo with her son as Serb snipers and artillery targeted the Bosnian capital. She was shot. The bullet passed through her abdomen and struck her 7-year-old son's head, killing him.

A Bosnian woman raises her arms upon hearing the sentence at the end of former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic's trial at the memorial center in Potocari, near Srebrenica, Bosnia, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017. A U.N. court has convicted former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

In Srebrenica, the war reached its bloody climax as Bosnian Serb forces overran what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected safe haven. After busing away women and children, Serb forces systematically murdered some 8,000 Muslim males.

Satellite trucks and cameras are set up outside the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, rear, where the court is scheduled to hand down the verdict in the genocide case against Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017.  (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

"Many of these men and boys were cursed, insulted, threatened, forced to sing Serb songs and beaten while awaiting their execution," Orie said.

Mladic looked relaxed as the hearing started, greeting lawyers, crossing himself and giving a thumbs-up to photographers in court. But midway through the hearing Mladic's lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, asked for a delay because the general was suffering from high blood pressure. The judge refused, Mladic started yelling and was tossed out of court.

When he started speaking, "it was not about his health but much more I think trying to insult the judges," Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said.

Satellite trucks and cameras are set up outside the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, rear center, where the court is scheduled to hand down the verdict in the genocide case against Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

The conflict in the former Yugoslavia erupted after the country's breakup in the early 1990s, with the worst crimes taking place in Bosnia. More than 100,000 people died and millions lost their homes before a peace agreement was signed in 1995. Mladic went into hiding for around 10 years before his arrest in Serbia in May 2011.

Bosnian women react upon hearing the sentence at the end of former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic's trial at the memorial center in Potocari, near Srebrenica, Bosnia, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017.  (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

Mladic's political master during the war, former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, was also convicted last year for genocide and sentenced to 40 years. He has appealed the ruling.

The man widely blamed for fomenting wars across the Balkans, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, died in his U.N. cell in 2006 before tribunal judges could reach verdicts in his trial.

Satellite trucks and cameras are set up outside the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, rear, where the court is scheduled to hand down the verdict in the genocide case against Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017.  (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

The ethnic tensions that Milosevic stoked from Belgrade simmer to this day.

Top Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik said the tribunal only underscored its anti-Serb bias by convicting Mladic. Dodik said the court was established with the "single purpose" of demonizing Serbs.

"This opinion is shared by all the Serbs," Dodik said, describing Mladic as "a hero and a patriot."

Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic waves as he enters the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017, to hear the verdict in his genocide trial. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, Pool)

Serbian President Alksandar Vucic, a former ultranationalist who supported Mladic's war campaigns but now casts himself as a pro-EU reformer, agreed that the court has been biased against Serbs but added that "we should not justify the crimes committed" by the Serbs.

"We are ready to accept our responsibility" for war crimes "while the others are not," he said.

For a former prisoner of Serb-run camps in northwestern Bosnia who was in The Hague, the verdict was sweet relief.

Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic flashes a thumbs up as he enters the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017, to hear the verdict in his genocide trial.  (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, Pool)

Fikret Alic became a symbol of the horrors in Bosnia after his skeletal frame was photographed by Time magazine behind barbed wire in 1992 in a Bosnian Serb camp.

"Justice has won," he said. "And the war criminal has been convicted."

Bosnian Serb men watch a live broadcast of former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic's trial in Sokolac, Bosnia, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Radul Radovanovic)

Bosnian Serb men watch a live broadcast of former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic's trial in Sokolac, Bosnia, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017.  (AP Photo/Radul Radovanovic)

Nura Mustafic, one of the Mothers of Srebrenica and other Bosnian organizations, wipes away tears as she reacts to the verdict which the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, ICTY, handed down in the genocide trial against former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday Nov. 22, 2017.(AP Photo/Phil Nijhuis)

A Kansas judge on Monday denied a request for a resentencing hearing for two brothers awaiting execution for a quadruple killing known as the “Wichita massacre,” ruling that he lacks jurisdiction to approve a reexamination of the sentences.

The legal setback was the latest for Jonathan Carr, 44, and Reginald Carr, 46. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to request a formal resentencing hearing, a decision that came a little less than a year after the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the two brothers had received fair trials and upheld their death sentences.

“I don’t know that I can do anything about that sentence until somebody vacates it,” Sedgewick County Chief Judge Jeff Goering said at the hearing.

Attorneys for the Carr brothers said they planned to appeal.

The brothers were convicted of breaking into a home in December 2000 and forcing three men and two women to have sex with one another and later to withdraw money from ATMs. Police said the women were repeatedly raped before all five victims were taken to a soccer field, where they were shot.

Aaron Sander, 29; Brad Heyka, 27; Jason Befort, 26; and Heather Muller, 25, all died. The woman who survived testified against the Carr brothers, who also were convicted of killing another person in a separate attack. Each brother accused the other of carrying out the crimes.

Kansas has nine men on death row, but the state has not executed anyone since the murderous duo James Latham and George York were hanged on the same day in June 1965.

Attorneys for the brothers argued Monday that since some convictions were tossed out in previous appeals, a new sentencing hearing is appropriate. Julia Spainhower, the attorney for Reginald Carr, told Goering he had a chance to correct “what was an obvious error.”

Sedgewick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said there was no “lack of clarity” in the Kansas Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty should stand.

“What the defense wants to do is reopen the whole thing,” Bennett said.

Attorneys for both brothers raised concerns in the latest round of court filings that the trial attorneys were ineffective — Reginald Carr’s defense said they were “egregiously” so — and failed to aggressively push for a continuance to give themselves more time to prepare. They also agreed that prospective jurors weren’t properly questioned about racial biases. The brothers are Black, their victims white.

Reginald Carr’s attorney’s also brought up an investigation into members of the Wichita Police Department exchanging racist, sexist and homophobic texts and images. Several were ultimately disciplined, and Carr’s attorney wrote that one of them was involved in the investigation of the brothers.

From there, the attorneys for the brothers deviate in their court filings. Jonathan Carr’s attorneys argued that the trial attorneys failed to investigate and present evidence that Reginald Carr, who is older, had a powerful influence over his younger brother and sexually abused him. A Kansas Department of Correction evaluation conducted just days after Jonathan Carr was sentenced to death said he “appears to idolize his brother,” his attorneys wrote.

Meanwhile, Reginald Carr’s attorneys wrote that the trial attorneys were unprepared to rebut Jonathan’s defense, which it described as “largely consisting of family members prepped to promote saving Jonathan Carr’s life over his older brother’s life.” And they further argued that DNA evidence and identification was actually stronger against Jonathan Carr.

The Kansas Supreme Court upheld their convictions in 2014 but overturned their death sentences, concluding that not having separate hearings violated the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision in 2016, returning the case to the Kansas Supreme Court.

When the Kansas Supreme Court took up the brothers’ cases again, their attorneys raised questions about how their cases weren’t conducted separately when jurors were considering whether the death penalty was warranted. Other issues they raised included the instructions that were given to jurors and how closing arguments were conducted.

The Kansas court’s majority concluded that while the lower-court judge and prosecutors made errors, those errors did not warrant overturning their death sentences again.

Jonathan Carr leaves Sedgwick County Judge Jeff Goering's courtroom on Monday, April 22, 2024. The judge denied a request for a resentencing hearing for two brothers awaiting the death penalty for a quadruple killing known as the “Wichita massacre,” ruling that he lacks jurisdiction to approve a reexamination of the sentences. Reginald Carr did not attend the hearing. (Jaime Green/The Wichita Eagle via AP)

Jonathan Carr's lawyers speak during a hearing on Monday, April 22, 2024 in Judge Jeff Goering's courtroom. The judge denied a request for a resentencing hearing for two brothers awaiting the death penalty for a quadruple killing known as the “Wichita massacre,” ruling that he lacks jurisdiction to approve a reexamination of the sentences. Reginald Carr did not attend the hearing. (Jaime Green/The Wichita Eagle via AP)

FILE - This combination of 2013 file photos provided by the Kansas Department of Corrections shows Reginald Carr, left, and Jonathan Carr. (Kansas Department of Corrections via AP, File)