ICTY Upholds Convictions, Sentences of Two Bosnian Serbs

by VOA News June 30, 2016

U.N. judges have rejected the appeals of two former top Bosnian Serbs officials against their convictions for war crimes during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

The appeals chamber at the United Nations Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, or ICTY, dismissed in their "entirety" the appeals brought by Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, said judge Carmel Agius.The court also upheld the men's 2013 convictions and 22-year prison sentences.

Additionally, the chamber rejected an appeal by prosecutors to increase the sentences.

Stanisic, 62, was the interior minister, while Zupljanin, 64, was a senior security official in charge of police in the breakaway Bosnian Serb republic (Republika Srpska) during the war, triggered by the breakup of the former Yugoslavia after the fall of communism.

They were convicted of 10 charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, including murder and torture, and cruel treatment of non-Serbs in municipalities and detention centers during the war.

The two men were close associates of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was found guilty in March on charges of genocide and war crimes for his role in the conflict.

Fighting in Bosnia-Herzogovina claimed more than 100,000 lives and left some 2.2 million people homeless.

The ICTY has indicted more than 150 people for serious violations of humanitarian law committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991, including genocide.