Profile: Simple man Martic gets 35 years for terror in Croatia

By Boris Babic Jun 12, 2007, 13:59 GMT

Belgrade/Zagreb - A former screw factory worker, constable, police inspector and always billed as the 'simple man,' Croatian Serb leader Milan Martic rose through the murk of war until he had enough power to launch deadly rockets at Croatia's capital.

The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday sentenced Martic to 35 years imprisonment for his role as Minister of Interior, Minister of Defence and president of the unilaterally-declared Serb republic in Krajina during the 1991-1995 conflict.

In his 'Serb republic,' (RSK) Martic had worked to expel Croats from Krajina, ICTY ruled, recalling 'militarily senseless' rocket attacks on Zagreb which left seven dead and hundreds of injured in May 1995.

Martic was sentenced for 'a series of other crimes ... in which hundreds of people, mostly women and the elderly, were killed,' Croatian news agency HINA said.

His forces murdered and abused Croat civilians and wrought destruction with the aim of uniting RSK, the Serb part of Bosnia and Serbia proper into the mythical Greater Serbia - a dream which Serbian nationalists continue to nurture.

In a cool reaction to the verdict - the prosecution had asked for life imprisonment - Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said Martic 'is the man who ordered attacks on Zagreb ... and is responsible for many deaths and injuries.'

Born in November 1954 in a village near the later-day Serb stronghold of Knin, Martic was a worker in a Knin screw factory before joining the police, a traditional refuge for poor boys in former Yugoslavia.

He was a constable in the port city of Sibenik, before returning to Knin as an inspector and eventually became precinct chief.

Slobodan Milosevic appointed Martic to lead the Croatian Serb insurgency after he showed allegiance to Belgrade by snubbing Zagreb authorities amid growing nationalist tensions and skirmishes in summer 1990.

Martic organized the arming of Serb civilians from police and Yugoslav army weapons magazines on the eve of the conflict. When Zagreb proclaimed Croatia's independence in June 1991, the Serbs declared their own republic and an all-out war was raging by November.

Described as a simple man, Martic became RSK president in late 1993, in a rigged election run against archrival Milan Babic, who eventually hanged himself while in detention at The Hague-based ICTY in 2006.

'I would like to be president for just five days and then hand the position over to Milosevic,' Martic said on the occasion, promising unification of RSK with Serbia within a year.

An adoring follower of Milosevic, whom he often referred to as 'our president,' Martic was brutally let down by his idol and had to flee from the advancing Croatian army in August 1995. RSK was quashed by Croats in two huge operations that year.

After arriving in Serbia with hundreds of thousands of refugees as a result of Milosevic's policies in Croatia, Martic lived in obscurity in Bosnia and Serbia until he turned himself in to ICTY in 2002.