[LINK] On the voiding of the treason conviction in Serbia of Draza Mihajlovic

[rfmcdonald]

The National Post shares Jovana Gec's Associated Press article noting the latest development in the Serbian, and former Yugoslavian, history wars. For the record, I'm inclined to think he probably was not worse than many of his opponents. (For whatever that matters.)

A Belgrade court on Thursday quashed the treason conviction of Gen. Draza Mihailovic for his collaboration with Nazis during the Second World War, politically rehabilitating the controversial Serbian guerrilla commander almost 70 years after he was sentenced and shot to death by communists.

For decades, Mihailovic’s fate has fueled division in Serbia, where many see him as a hero who died for political reasons.

The Higher Court of Belgrade said Thursday that the verdict from July 1946 is now “null and void.”

The ruling was met with a thunderous applause by dozens of Mihailovic’s supporters who filled the courtroom. Dozens more flag-waving nationalist supporters and leftist opponents of Mihailovic gathered outside and were kept apart by riot police.

[. . .]

Supporters of Second World War Yugoslav communist partisans maintain that Mihailovic collaborated with the Nazi occupiers, and non-Serbs in the former Yugoslavia have accused his troops of atrocities.

[. . .]

As a Yugoslav royal army officer, Mihailovic launched a resistance movement in 1941 against German occupation, before turning against communist guerrillas later in the war. When the Second World War was over, he was jailed and sentenced to death in a hasty trial. He was buried in an unmarked grave.