[JURIST] A federal court in Ohio on Tuesday sentenced [press release] Serbian refugee Slobodan Mutic to two years in prison for lying on immigration forms about his participation in ethnic cleansing and genocide in the former Yugoslavia. A spokesperson for the Cleveland District Attorney’s Office said that Mutic will be sent back to Croatia to stand trial for war crimes following the completion of his sentence in the US. Interpol had issued a warrant for Mutic in 2002. In a 1992 affidavit, Mutic admitted to aiding in the killing a Croatian couple while serving in a Serbian militia group. In December Mutic pleaded guilty to lying on immigration forms, which is a federal crime.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] and the Balkan States continue to prosecute those accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity that left more than 100,000 people dead and millions displaced during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. Earlier this month three former members of the Bosnian Muslim armed forces were arrested [JURIST report] in Tulza, a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), for allegedly killing as many as 10 Serb civilians in Srebrenica in July 1992. Serbian prosecutors charged [JURIST report] former Bosnian Army general Naser Oric in August with war crimes against prisoners of war in 1992 for crimes allegedly committed in the same village. He was accused of killing of killing of three Bosnian Serb prisoners of war. Oric has pleaded [JURIST report] not guilty. In April the BiH prosecutor’s office indicted [JURIST report] 10 former Bosnian-Serb soldiers for war crimes committed during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. Also in April Bosnian prosecutors indicted three men [JURIST report] for crimes committed against more than 300 Serb civilians between April 1992 and July 1993.