In July 2019 a former policeman from Wales watched a live feed as one of the most notorious war criminals in 20th century Europe had his 40 year sentence increased to life.
Howard Tucker felt a “perverse satisfaction” at the stunned reaction of Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadžic as the verdict was passed. The mass murderer had been found guilty in 2016 of killing thousands of people during the Bosnian War. Now his appeal had turned sour.
As a war crimes investigator in Bosnia for more than 16 years Howard, a former detective from south Wales, helped put Karadžic behind bars.
Watching from the offices of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the courts at the Hague, he hoped it would bring some closure to the warmonger's many victims.
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The father of three left his home in Cardiff to travel across Bosnia collecting eye witness testimony and other evidence of atrocities committed in the war of 1992-95 and the years around it.
As head of mission for the UN International Criminal Tribunal in Bosnia he also had the gruesome task, along with his team, of locating mass graves, identifying victims and finding evidence to prove mass murder.
In July this year the pandemic meant Howard was not there when former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic lost his appeal against a 2017 conviction for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. But again, he felt a satisfaction on behalf of victims and the survivors he got to know well.
So how did a policeman working for CID in Caerphilly find himself propelled into a world of political and diplomatic intrigue in a region and conflict he admits he knew little about?
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With nearly 28 years police experience, Howard was looking for new challenges when an advert caught his eye. He was on a night shift in late 1997 when he saw in the police publication ‘Weekly Orders’, that British detectives were being sought for secondment to to help to investigate allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Balkan war of the early 1990’s .
The 48 year-old father-of-three thought he would never be accepted, but fired off his application anyway. He had followed the progress of the war and had not forgotten switching the TV on in 1993 and seeing Colonel Bob Stewart, Commander of British Forces in Central Bosnia, speaking in outrage at a massacre of 120 civilians in the village of Ahmići and calling for an international tribunal to investigate.
The ethnically rooted Bosnian War raged between 1992 and 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At the time of the conflict, the former republic of Yugoslavia consisted of numerous nations that included Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (now called Northern Macedonia).
Bosnia and Herzegovina had a multi-ethnic population that consisted of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) ,Bosnian Serbs, and Bosnian Croats as well as some Roma, Jews and other ethnicities. After years of fighting between the three main groups, the Yugoslav army and Western countries - with NATO backing - imposed a ceasefire in 1995 known as the “Dayton Peace Accords”.
By the time Howard applied to be an investigator in 1997, two years after the war ended, an estimated 14,000 civilians had been murdered - 80% of them Muslims including more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed in the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, a crime later deemed genocide by the international court in the Hague.
As he posted his application, the Welsh policeman knew he had the skills to help bring those responsible to court but he still didn’t think he would be successful.
He was wrong.
Within months, Howard was asked to join The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague an organisation that was created to investigated and prosecuted perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity that took place during the Balkan War.
The Welsh detective was designated to work with investigative “Team 7”, who were investigating allegations of war crimes in Central Bosnia. He was very keen to get going.
In April 1998 Howard left his wife Lynda and children in Cardiff and flew to the Netherlands on secondment from Gwent Police.
During 16 years with the team, including more than eight as head of mission, Howard travelled to remote parts of Bosnia collecting witness statements and working with forensic archaeologists to identify remains in mass graves.
He spoke to women who had lost every male relative, including one whose husband was shot in front of her as her teenage son tried desperately to escape by jumping from a first floor window.
Another survivor he got to know very well, was Hatidža Mehmedović, who lost her son and husband when they were taken at Srebrenica. Every male member of her family was slaughtered and her house in Srebrenica was destroyed. When the war ended and Hatidža returned to her family home, rebuilt by an international association, Serbian neighbours threatened her by drawing their fingers across their throats.
Persuading Hatidža and others to share testimony the gently spoken Welsh investigator had to negotiate threats, fear and suspicion as he travelled to areas where people had never seen a foreigner before and everyone took sides.
As head of mission in 2005 Howard was tasked with assisting trial teams in The Hague to locate mass graves. He needed to identify where Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić had ordered executions and burials before digging the victims up and burying them elsewhere to hide the atrocities. These crimes were accomplished with the assistance of Slobodan Milošević, (former President of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997-2000).
The grisly mission meant scouring the countryside for buried human remains, prosthetic limbs, clothes, bullets, blindfolds, ligatures, identification documents, clothing, personal effects, and other items.
"It was not only to recover the victims, establish their identify and collect evidence, but also to prove that these men and boys were not soldiers killed in battle but civilians who were targeted, murdered and dumped in mass graves," recalls Howard.
Using satellite imagery and aerial technology they found images showing men and boys standing in fields, the fallen bodies and later diggers moving in to bury them. It was hard to conceal all the evidence from such industrial killing.
At one site, “Branjevo Military Farm”, more than 1,000 Muslim men and boys were estimated to have been murdered on July 16 1995. Tribunal investigators and forensic archaeologists found the primary grave site, but the victims' remains were removed by the perpetrators prior to the arrival of Howard's team from the ICTY. They subsequently discovered five “secondary graves” where the victims from the primary site had been dumped. These five sites were spread across more than 60 kilometres of Bosnian wilderness.
Doing this work, and listening to these stories, Howard had to remain emotionally detached to cope.
“Through my work in the police I had come across horrible stuff. You have to find a switch to switch off. You have to have that switch or you could become an emotional wreck. Some things do get to me though and I do, on occasions get teary.
“As a Cardiff policeman I was plunged into the world of political and diplomatic intrigue. It was an education. I was overawed at first but fairly quickly got into it.”
Eventually the painstaking work of Howard and his team helped bring 20 soldiers, paramilitary and military leaders guilty of war crimes and genocide to trial in the Hague.
Among them were “Butcher of Bosnia” Ratko Mladic and Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadžic, who were together found guilty of killing thousands of people.
In 2019, months before the pandemic struck Howard flew back to the Hague to be re-united with investigators as they watched Karadžic have this sentence increased to life on appeal.
Watching from the live feed in the prosecutor’s office Howard felt an “immense satisfaction” for the victims and the survivors he had got to know and still stays in touch with.
“It’s hard to explain how I felt. It wasn’t just personal satisfaction but knowing that victims and their families have some form of justice.
“When Karadžic had his sentence increased to life I took a perverse satisfaction in his personal reaction. He looked stunned.
“The tribunal has closed now but there are still some appeals and it has not finished for families of the deceased. Thousands of people are still missing.
“To the world it is finished but in reality it is not over for those affected.”
It is not over for Howard either. He says he’s not haunted by the statements he took and the things he saw, but it’s important the genocide, now denied by some leaders in Bosnia, is not forgotten.
The former police detective works with the charity Remembering Srebrenica and is proud that Wales and the UK hold annual memorials to mark the genocide - the only countries in the world to do so.
“It is important to remember what happened.
“When we remember victims of this genocide and mass murder it brings awareness to society of how bad things can happen and how thin the veneer of civilisation is.
“In Bosnia it was Christians against Muslims and Muslims against Christians.
“This is ‘hate crime’ at its worst. This is what hate crime can lead to. It is very relevant to the UK and EU today.
“The rise of extremism in all its horrors is very scary. What worries me is the differences opening up in society. The UK ‘middle society’ has always been so moderate, but I see this moderation changing. That’s frightening.
“Remember that everybody in Bosnia looks like us and for generations were friends and neighbours going to school together, working, having beer and coffee together.
“Communities were very well integrated. The fall of Communism in the former Yugoslavia opened up divisions.
“Under Tito’s Communism everyone had a job and took holidays and were well locked after by the state. Suddenly that stopped. People became factionalised. Allegiances to political leaders was absolute. People became divided. There is a risk it could happen again, almost anywhere. The Bosnian Genocide, like the Holocaust of WWII, has a lesson for today’s society.”
Howard, who was awarded a CBE in 2018 for services to international justice, and the UN Medal for Peace Keeping services on mission, is alarmed at the next generation of leaders in the region denying the genocide took place..
He is also worried about the rise of extremism in Wales, the UK and the world.
“Bosnia now is very fragile. When I left in 2013 many locals and friends felt it was as bad as 1991. Croats, Muslims and Serbs have started their own schools again and are divided again.
“The current Serbian leader rejects the charge of genocide. My view, and that of many people, is that unless that takes place you cannot have reconciliation.
“Three international courts have found genocide happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina so how can senior politicians be allowed to spout this rhetoric?
“This is why remembering Srebrenica and other memorials are so important. Does it have relevance now? Yes. The relevance of the Bosnian War for Wales is that there are lessons and comparisons about ‘hate crime’ for our of society about what happened there.”
In November Christian Schmidt, the international community's chief representative in Bosnia, warned there is a “very real” prospect of a return to conflict.
Schmidt, the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that if Serb separatists carry out threats to recreate their own army international peacekeepers would have to return to prevent war.
He may have helped cage some of the worst war criminals but the policeman from Cardiff fears the spectre of horror looms large again in Bosnia.
Howard is completing a book about his experiences. The Dead Deserve Justice: A Detective’s Investigative Journey through the Horrors of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, is is due to be published early next year.
