Bosnian Serb court reaches first guilty war crimes verdict News
Bosnian Serb court reaches first guilty war crimes verdict

[JURIST] A Bosnian Serb court Thursday handed down its first war crimes ruling since the end of the Bosnian war in 1995 by sentencing three former Serb police officers to up to 20 years in prison for the deaths of six Muslim citizens. The three officers were originally accused of murder in 1994, but were released after their trial. An appeal changed the charges against them into war crimes, including allegations of ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats. While this marks the first verdict in the Bosnian Serb area of the country, dozens of war crimes investigations and trials have occurred in the Muslim-Croat half of Bosnia [JURIST news archive]. One of the three convicted officers has not yet been captured but was tried in absentia. Reuters has more.