JURIST - Paper Chase: Bosnia war crimes court upholds 31-year sentence for Srebrenica massacre

[JURIST] The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) [official website] on Wednesday upheld the conviction [JURIST report] and 31-year sentence of Radomir Vukovic for his part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian civil war [JURIST news archives]. While Vukoic's appeal was denied, Zoran Tomic won his appeal on a lack of evidence. As a member of the 2nd Sekovici Special Police Detachment, the court found that Vukovic participated in executing 1,000 Bosniak men who were imprisoned in a warehouse. This was Vukovic's final appeal.

Earlier this week, convicted Serbian war criminal Radovan Stankovic [JURIST report] was arrested in BiH after being on the run since May 2007 when he escaped from a Bosnian prison. Stankovic was convicted of multiple war crimes [JURIST report] in 2006, including rape, enslavement and torture. Last month, the US extradited Rasema Handanovic [JURIST report], a woman accused of killing Bosnian Croat civilians during the Bosnian Civil War. A number of cases have been opened in relation to the Bosnian Civil War. The Court of BiH confirmed the indictment [JURIST report] of former police officer Bozidar Kuvelja in March for his role in a 1995 massacre. In February, French authorities arrested Milorad Momic [JURIST report] under an international arrest warrant for his suspected involvement in war crimes. Last August, Spanish officials extradited accused Montenegrin war criminal [JURIST report] Veselin Vlahovic, known as the "monster of Grbavica," to Sarajevo.