STANISIC, ZUPLJANIN: MILD SENTENCES FOR SERB WAR CRIMINALS

Former high ranking Bosnian Serb official Mico Stanisic arrives to attend trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague March 27, 2013. Stojan Zupljanin and Stanisic were accused of crimes committed against non-Serb civilians in various areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina between April and December 1992. (Photo by Michael Kooren)

Former Bosnian Serb senior security official and police chief Stojan Zupljanin, right, welcomes his lawyer prior to his judgment in the courtroom of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday March 27, 2013. UN judges deliver verdicts in the trial of two former Bosnian Serb police chiefs, Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, both charged with crimes including persecution, extermination, murder, torture and deportation for their alleged roles in a criminal conspiracy led by Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic to force Bosniaks and Croats out of what they considered to be Serb territory in Bosnia. (Photo by: Michael Kooren)

MILD SENTENCES FOR SERB WAR CRIMINALS

Bosnian Serb policemen get 22 years for Yugoslavia war crimes

Judges in The Hague on Wednesday sentenced two former Bosnian Serb police officers to 22 years' jail for their role in war crimes and crimes against humanity during the break-up of Yugoslavia more than 20 years ago.

They ruled Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin contributed to a plan to permanently remove non-Serbs from the territory of a planned Serb state in parts of multi-ethnic Bosnia by committing acts of violence against Bosniaks and ethnic Croats.

Some of their crimes were committed when Serb forces took over the municipality of Prijedor in 1992, which led to the deaths of more than 1,000 people, the judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said.

Many inhabitants were taken to improvised detention camps, including a particularly notorious one at Omarska, where detainees were raped and killed. Others were held in "deplorably inhumane" conditions.

"Over 100 persons were executed in room three at Keraterm camp in one night around July 25 by Serb guards," according to a summary of the judgment read out by Burton Hall, presiding judge.

"At Omarska camp ... mass executions were held from late July onwards."

More than 100,000 people were killed during the war in Bosnia, the bloodiest of the conflicts that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

The two men, who pleaded not guilty to all charges at the beginning of the trial in 2009, sat impassively through the judgment. Zapljanin made the sign of the cross when he heard his sentence.

"I think the sentences are too mild and too short, if you look at Prijedor alone, not to mention other municipalities," said Mirsad Duratovic, the president of the association of camp inmates in the northwestern town of Prijedor, known for detention camps for non-Serbs.

Duratovic said that 3,173 non-Serbs had been killed in the Prijedor area and over 1,000 were still missing.

Lawyers for Stanisic and Zupljanin were not immediately available to say whether their clients would appeal.

Maja Zuvela / Reuters