U.N. Tribunal Convicts Two for Srebrenica

[struggle4progress]

Tuesday January 18, 2005 12:31 AM


By ANTHONY DEUTSCH
Associated Press Writer

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - A U.N. tribunal convicted and sentenced two former Bosnian Serb army commanders to lengthy prison terms Monday for their roles in the 1995 slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica, Europe's worst massacre since World War II.

Col. Vidoje Blagojevic, 54, received an 18-year term for complicity in genocide and other war crimes. He was the wartime commander of the Bratunac brigade that took part in the killing of more than 7,000 Muslims near the eastern Bosnia city of Srebrenica.

Dragan Jokic, 47, a major in the Zvornik brigade who assumed command during a week of killing at the end of the 1992-1995 war, got a nine-year sentence. He was convicted of murder, extermination and persecution on racial grounds. <snip>

The Srebrenica massacres occurred in July 1995 at the end of the Bosnian war after the eastern Bosnian enclave, which had been under U.N. protection, fell to Serb forces. Some 30,000 women, children and elderly people were packed into buses and deported. The men were separated and executed, their bodies dumped in mass graves. <snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4739147,00.html