Prosecutor v. Milan Martić

A Serbian group attempted to separate from Croatia to form the Serb Republic of Krajina (RSK), and armed conflict ensued between RSK and the Croatian government. Milan Martić (defendant) was RSK’s president. Martić verbally threatened to harm over 100,000 civilians in the densely populated Croatian capital of Zagreb. In 1995, Martić ordered RSK forces to shell Zagreb with cluster bombs called M-87 Orkan rockets. Cluster bombs release additional bombs over the target, causing widespread destruction. An Orkan bomb’s destruction area is two hectares, or three to four American football fields. The shelling caused civilian injuries and deaths but did little damage to military targets. Martić ordered a second day of shelling, which also caused significant civilian harm. In 2002, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) charged Martić with numerous war crimes, including the war crime of conducting a widespread attack on a civilian population for his 1995 indiscriminate shelling of Zagreb. Martić claimed the shelling was in retaliation for a Croatian military attack and was aimed at only military targets. Martić also claimed ignorance of the bombs’ potential civilian impact. The ICTY’s trial chamber ruled that using Orkan cluster bombs in a densely populated area like Zagreb was a per se unlawful indiscriminate attack, even if military objects were the intended targets. The trial chamber also determined that the shelling was not a lawful reprisal or a lawful exercise of self-defense. The ICTY convicted Martić of conducting a direct, widespread attack on Zagreb’s civilians, along with other war crimes. Martić appealed. For the shelling conviction, Martić argued that the evidence did not show that he had knowingly attacked civilians and that Croatia was to blame for any civilian deaths because it should have moved its civilians away from the military targets. The appeals chamber reviewed the matter.