The tribunal which is intending to complete its task by the end of 2008 is bursting

The tribunal, which is intending to complete its task by the end of 2008, is bursting at the seams.Eleven cases are being heard at present and two new suspects are expected to surrender to the tribunal today: Nikola Sainovic, a former deputy prime minister, and Momcilo Gruban, a former Bosnian Serb prison official. In a statement, the tribunal said it would have to be satisfied that “domestic courts are operating in all fairness and with full respect for the principles of humanitarian law and the protection of human rights”. Confronted by a mounting backlog of cases, the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague may send some of its prosecutions back to courts in the former Yugoslavia.
Forty-one suspects are held at the UN detention centre in the Netherlands and judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia have agreed that dispatching some suspects to be tried at home may be the best way to ease the logjam.But high-profile cases such as the genocide trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic will stay at The Hague, and in the short term only Bosnia and Herzegovina is likely to be able to meet the UN’s required standards. Dressed in a grey suit and flanked by guards, his last words to the judge were: “I have faith in your justice.”Turkish prosecutors had reduced the maximum sentence sought for him and the others from 30 to 15 years per murder conviction, because they could not establish if any defendant was solely responsible for the deaths..

A further 13 defendants were released because of a lack of evidence.Demir, who had been a month into military service when arrested, was impassive as the verdict was read out. Two other Turks were fined, one for concealing a knife used in the fight, and the other for being involved in it. With broken bottles in their hands, they started the fighting.”The incident, he claimed, had taught foreigners to “respect Turkish honour”.But Iskender Tepebasi, presiding judge in a panel of three, indicated the court was unanimous that Demir had murdered Speight and voted 2-1 that he murdered Loftus.The judges also sentenced four other Turks to three months and 22 days in prison for being involved in the fighting. that could be reduced with good behaviour to six years, in effect three years per person. A likely appeal against conviction must be lodged by the defence within a week.Peter Ridsdale, the chairman of Leeds United, refused to comment on the case yesterday but friends of the victims were furious.Roy Schofield, treasurer of Leeds United Supporters’ Club, said: “Fifteen years sounds quite a serious sentence but … It was half the sentence Demir had been told to expect if convicted and could be reduced by more than half again for good behaviour.He has been remanded in jail since the case began in May 2000 and his lawyers said he hoped to serve only a further five and a half years.John Howe, the lawyer for Mr Speight’s widow, Susan, said yesterday: “On one hand she’s relieved the case has come to a conclusion but another reaction was her concern about the leniency of the sentence.”To a certain extent it is an irrelevance what sentence was passed in that it will never compensate her for the loss she has had to endure.”The trial has been prey to five adjournments since it began. The family and friends of two Leeds United supporters stabbed to death before a match in Turkey two years ago were angered and disappointed yesterday by the 15-year jail term given to the killer.
The sentence was handed down to Ali Umit Demir, a 21-year-old Turk, after his conviction for the murders of Christopher Loftus and Kevin Speight.

If the President becomes too associated with the left in the minds of some right-wing voters, they might swing towards the far right.In London, at least 50 people were arrested in a series of violent clashes between riot police and protesters during an otherwise peaceful day of anti-capitalist demonstrations.. There has been muttering that the left is trying to “steal” Mr Chirac’s victory by turning Sunday’s election into a referendum against Mr Le Pen. Next Sunday, he will be beaten and marginalised in the ballot boxes.”One unknown is the impact of yesterday’s anti-Le Pen protests on the millions of centre-right and undecided voters. The Ministry of the Interior put the total of anti-Le Pen demonstrators in provincial towns and cities at more than 900,000, dwarfing the record of 330,000 set last week.There were marches by 51,000 people in Grenoble, 50,000 in Lyons, 45,000 people in Toulouse, 38,000 in Bordeaux, 30,000 in Marseilles, 23,000 in Montpellier, 20,000 in Rennes, 15,000 in Strasbourg, 11,000 in Nice and 11,000 in Brest.The anti-racist group SOS Racisme said: “Le Pen has been beaten in the streets. Opinion polls have suggested President Chirac will be re-elected with at least 77 per cent of the vote but e-mail rumours have been sweeping France of “secret” intelligence service polls showing Mr Le Pen gaining 42 per cent.The rumours have been officially denied, but France remains in a febrile, almost panicky mood, which perhaps explains the magnitude of the protests. But in terms of sheer numbers on the street yesterday, it was the French people who mounted an insurrection against Mr Le Pen.Whether they will turn out in similar numbers to vote against Mr Le Pen on Sunday remains to be seen.

Mr Le Pen, 73, claimed to be leading an insurrection of the people against the “cosmopolitan” elite that had taken part in repeated acts of “treachery” against the very existence of France. The police gave the attendance as 10,000 and independent observers calculated that there were about 20,000 NF supporters – four times as many as last year.Fears that fringe groups from the two demonstrations might clash or provoke battles with the police failed to materialise.Mr Le Pen gave a violently worded open-air speech in the Place de L’Op?, accusing President Jacques Chirac of being a “thief” who had “betrayed” France in a deliberate conspiracy to “submerge” the French nation in “colonial immigration”. The NF claimed 100,000 people joined the march, which was nominally intended to commemorate Joan of Arc as a scourge of foreign invaders. The crowd was the largest seen for a May Day in Paris and the scale of the protests in 400 demonstrations across the country was “unprecedented”, one senior police source said.A National Front march through Paris earlier in the day, led and addressed by Mr Le Pen, was largely overshadowed. Tens of thousands of Parisians, many of them in family groups, used their May Day holiday to protest, and possibly show their regret at having failed to vote in the first round of the election. Many people fainted and had to be lifted to safety.Although the march was organised by trade unions and anti-racist groups, it was by no means confined to theleft. France was engulfed yesterday by a human tidal wave of peaceful protest against the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.More than 400,000 people gathered in Paris, and more than 1,300,000 across France – from cities to the smallest towns and even villages – to decry the presence of the veteran National Front leader in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday.The crowds in the capital were so enormous – 500,000-plus, organisers said, 400,000 according to the police – that there were fears for the safety of the protesters packed into the Place de la R?blique and the Place de la Bastille.