JURIST - Paper Chase: Bosnia court convicts former Serb commander of crimes against humanity

[JURIST] The War Crimes Court [official website, in Bosnian] of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) on Friday convicted [press release] former Serbian commander Predrag Kujundzic of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 22 years in jail. The court found Kujundzic in violation of Article 172 (1) h) of the Criminal Code of BiH [text, PDF]. The court found that as the commander of the Predo's Wolves from the spring 1992 to autumn 1993, Kujundzic "committed and incited killings, coercing to sexual slavery, rape, severe deprivation of physical liberty, persecution of non-Serb civilian population and other inhuman acts." Kujundzic was also found guilty of inhumane treatment of 50 Bosniak and Croat civilians who had been unlawfully detained and used as human shields during active combat operations, resulting in 17 of these civilians losing their lives. The court found that "Kujundzic failed to undertake necessary and reasonable measures to prevent such treatment, although he knew that those civilians were treated in a forbidden manner and that they would be exposed to a life threatening situation." The court extended custody up to nine months in case the second-instance verdict revokes the first-instance verdict. Kujundzic was indicted [text, PDF, in Bosnian] in January 2008, and his trial began in April of that year.

Last week, BiH police arrested [JURIST report] three former Bosnian Serb policemen on Thursday on genocide charges related to the Srebrenica massacre [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. Last November, BiH police arrested [JURIST report] two other former police officers suspected of involvement in the Srebrenica massacre. In October 2008, the Court of BiH sentenced [JURIST report] former Bosnian Serb special police officer Vaso Todorovic [BiH backgrounder] to six years in prison for committing crimes against humanity. During the 1995 forcible transfer of 40,000 Bosniak from a UN-protected area in Srebrenica to Potocari, Serbian forces allegedly summarily executed at least 7,000 Bosniak men between the ages of 13 and 17.