The SIU School of Law welcomed a man who helped prosecute mass atrocities involving ethnic cleansing campaigns.
Adam Weber delivered the Hiram Lesar Distinguished Lecture Tuesday in Carbondale.
Weber supervised the Sarajevo component of the International Criminal Tribunal against Ratko Mladic - who was the army general known as the "Butcher of Bosnia" because of the brutal campaign he waged during the Bosnian war. Weber says he was honored to serve on one of the first international tribunals since Nuremburg in World War II.
"As a lawyer, as a prosecutor, of course, these courts represent a pinnacle of what, hopefully, justice is about."
Although this is his first trip to the campus, Weber says he is familiar with SIU's Law School thanks to acting associate dean and international law program director Cindy Buys.
"She actually came to the Hague on a couple of different occasions. I think the last one was in 2015 with a bunch of students. You could clearly see the enthusiasm from her students. Yeah, at the time I was able to meet and speak with them."
Weber served on the tribunal for nearly ten years. The Mladic trial alone took five years before he was found guilty of committing war crimes last November and sentenced to life in prison.
Weber recently returned to Chicago. He says his immediate plans are to do more lecturing and work with people in the international justice field before eventually returning to the courtroom.
