Talk:Slobodan Praljak

Found Guilty vs. Guilty
So it seems logical that an accused cannot be called guilty until the verdict is read in full to them. It also appears that the timeline is such that Praljak took his life before the verdict was read in full to him. Is the use of the construct "found guilty" used in the text because plain "guilty" cannot be used in the text? And if this is true what are the implications for the article? If Praljak is guilty of war crimes, than that should be stated clearly and not as here in an incomplete form. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:3024:1605:D600:A9F5:CB13:A29B:A13A (talk) 18:59, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

A reasonable distinction between "found guilty" and "guilty" should go much further than that. Under Stalin, several people were "found guilty" in show trials which bore little resemblance to justice. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure verdicts were "read in full" to the persons convicted. Does that mean that we should call them "guilty"? Of course not. In general, the decisions of a court do not deserve our respect when those decisions are politically influenced. That is certainly true of the ICTY. Its decisions may or may not correspond to the facts and the law; it's extremely difficult to know. But they were certainly influenced by politics. I do not think they deserve much respect and I do not think that calling any of the persons convicted "guilty", without qualification, is fair. Longitude2 (talk) 20:04, 19 November 2020 (UTC)