UN tribunal sentences former Bosnian Serb parliament speaker

28/09/2006

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The UN war crimes tribunal on Wednesday (27 September) sentenced the wartime speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament to 27 years in prison. Momcilio Krajisnik was found guilty on five counts of war crimes, but was acquitted of the most serious charge, genocide. In their ruling, the judges said that while the atrocities against Muslims and Croats did in fact amount to genocide, there was insufficient evidence to prove the perpetrators actually planned to destroy the entire non-Serb population in Serb-dominated areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 conflict.

Reaction to the verdict was mixed. BiH Presidency Chairman Sulejman Tihic, a Bosniak, said it "partially served justice", while RS President Dragan Cavic questioned the tribunal's impartiality. (Nezavisne novine - 28/09/06; AP, Reuters, The New York Times, ICTY website, RTRS, RTS, Beta, BBC News - 27/09/06)