Alexis Tsipras, the former Greek prime minister and leader of the new left-wing party ELAS, sharply criticized his former coalition partner Panos Kammenos on Wednesday for attending the funeral of convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladić, saying "certain crimes are not forgiven."
Responding to a question from iefimerida.gr at a news conference during the 90th Thessaloniki International Fair, Mr. Tsipras said "a political abyss" separates him from Mr. Kammenos, who led the nationalist Independent Greeks party in Mr. Tsipras' 2015-2019 coalition government, which Mr. Tsipras described as a "government of necessity."
Mr. Kammenos had eulogized Mr. Mladić as an "Orthodox patriot" at his funeral in Belgrade last week, rejecting descriptions of him as a "butcher."
Mr. Mladić, the wartime commander of Bosnian Serb forces, died in a U.N. detention facility in The Hague on Aug. 27 at 84, while serving a life sentence handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including the Srebrenica massacre.
"You cannot honor a person convicted for crimes against humanity," Mr. Tsipras said. "Even if forgiven, certain crimes are not forgiven."
He added that Greece cannot simultaneously call for respect toward international courts while honoring the "butcher of the Balkans," and said all those in politics "must be particularly sensitive" to such crimes.
Mr. Tsipras said the episode had not damaged his past cooperation with Mr. Kammenos, standing by earlier praise for their government's integrity.
By Antonis Telopoulos