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Four Serb War Criminals Sentenced To Jail
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12
years later, crimes committed against Muslims in the Balkans still
to be unearthed
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BELGRADE,
September 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A Belgrade
court declared Monday, September 29, that four Serb war criminals were
given 15 to 20-year prison sentences for crimes against Muslim
civilians committed in 1992.
The
court "irrefutably established" that the four Serbs
kidnapped Muslim citizens of Serbia, from the southwestern town of
Sjeverin, Agence France Presse quoted judge Nata Mesarevic as saying.
The
year-long trial was frequently interrupted, and human rights groups
warned that military and police officials from Milosevic's era also
should have been brought before the court.
The
Serb war criminals took the victims to the Bosnian Serb-run town of
Visegrad and "tortured them there, mistreated them and then
brought them to the bank of the Drina river and killed them," she
added.
The
group - Milan Lukic, Oliver Krsmanovic and Dragutin Dragicevic - were
sentenced to 20 years in prison, while Djordje Sevic received a
15-year jail term. They were found guilty of kidnapping, torturing and
murdering 16 Muslims in October 1992.
Both
of Lukic, also wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and Krsmanovic, who are still at large, were
tried in absentia.
Lukic,
who is also wanted by the Hague-based ICTY, led a Bosnian Serb
paramilitary unit during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.
The
Serb paramilitaries kidnapped the Muslims in October 1992 from a
passenger bus near Sjeverin, a town close to the border with Bosnia.
The remains of the victims have never been found.
The
so-called Sjeverin case was the most serious crime that had happened
on the territory of Serbia, run then by former president Slobodan
Milosevic, during the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia.
Sabrija
Hodzic, father of a kidnapped victim, welcomed the sentence but warned
that "those who are the most responsible for this crime have
remained free."
"They
have sentenced the executioners, but not those who gave the
orders," Hodzic said after the sentence was pronounced.
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