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UN:
GENERAL WHO LED SIEGE OF SARAJEVO JAILED FOR 33 YEARS BY UN WAR CRIMES
TRIBUNAL: 12/12/2007 (MaximsNews Network)
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UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network /
- 12 December 2007 --
A former Bosnian Serb army general who
commanded much of the prolonged siege of Sarajevo has been sentenced to 33 years
in prison by the United Nations war crimes tribunal set up to deal with the
worst crimes committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Judges
at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which
sits in The Hague, today found Dragomir Milošević guilty of five counts of
murder, inflicting terror and committing inhumane acts and acquitted him on two
charges of unlawful attacks against civilians.
Announcing
the verdict and the sentence, the ICTY trial chamber said that Bosnian Serb
forces led by Mr. Milošević had encircled and entrapped the city of
Sarajevo for a 15-month period ending in November 1995, carrying out an
indiscriminate campaign of sniping and shelling that resulted in death and
injury to many civilians.
“There
was no safe place in Sarajevo; one could be killed or injured anywhere and
anytime,” many witnesses testified during the trial.
The
judges also noted that modified air bombs were used by Mr. Milošević’s
forces even though they were inaccurate and served no military purpose.
In one
of the most notorious incidents during the siege, Bosnian Serb forces fired
mortar shells at Sarajevo’s Markele Market on 28 August 1995, killing 34
civilians and wounding 78 others. ICTY judges rejected the argument of defence
lawyers that the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina had staged the market attack.
Mr. Milošević,
65, who is not related to the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević,
had pleaded not guilty to all charges. His predecessor as head of the forces
laying siege to Sarajevo, Stanislav Galić, has already been convicted by
the ICTY and sentenced to life in prison.
Meanwhile,
the ICTY appeals chamber granted a former senior officer of the Yugoslav
People’s Army (JNA) provisional release from jail pending the hearing of his
appeal.
Veselin
Šljivancanin is serving a five-year sentence after being found guilty of one
count of aiding and abetting torture relating to the beatings of Croatian
prisoners of war at Ovcara, near Vukovar, in late 1991.
The
appeal judges said the fact that Mr. Šljivancanin has already served nearly 90
per cent of his sentence meant his provisional release was appropriate. He must
remain within Serbia, surrender his passport to police and he is not allowed to
discuss the case with the media nor interfere in any way with victims or
witnesses.
Labels: United
Nations, U.N.,
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