Bosnia war crimes court hands down first Srebrenica sentences News
Bosnia war crimes court hands down first Srebrenica sentences

[JURIST] The Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina [official website] Tuesday delivered its first sentences [press release; case backgrounder] of war crimes suspects from Yugoslavia's violent ethnic conflicts of the 1990s, convicting seven of genocide [BiH Criminal Code Article 171, PDF] for their involvement in killings committed at the Srebrenica [JURIST news archive] prison camp. Seven men convicted were given sentences ranging from 38 to 42 years; four others on trial were acquitted of all charges. The court held that the suspects knew the killings they were accomplices to were designed to eliminate Bosnian Muslims from the camp, and also convicted two of the men for killings committed by subordinates. In a press release, the court recounted the incident central to the 2005 indictment [text, PDF; 2008 amendment, PDF] of the men:

The Panel found that several thousand Bosniak men were captured and detained at the Sandi?i meadow in the morning and afternoon of 13 July. These men were part of the column of Bosniak men attempting to break out from the Srebrenica enclave after the capture of the enclave by the forces of the Republika Srpska. Many of these men were induced to surrender by deception, and were told they would be safe and taken to territory under control of ARBiH. At least one thousand of these men were then transported by bus or marched in a column to the warehouse of the Farming Cooperative Kravica, where they were further detained. Beginning in the early evening, shortly after the arrival of the column of men, these prisoners were executed in the warehouse by small arms fire, machine gun fire and the use of hand grenades.

BBC News has more.

On Wednesday, Radovan Karadzic [ICTY materials; JURIST news archive], the man accused of running the camp, was transferred [press release; JURIST report] from Serbia to the custody of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] to face trial on related war crimes charges. ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz [ICC profile; JURIST report] has vowed to try all war crimes suspects [JURIST report] before the ICTY by the expiration of its mandate in 2010.