Bosnia's war crimes court has sentenced a former-Serb policeman to six years in jail for crimes against humanity in the Srebrenica massacre in which up to 8,000 Muslims died in the last months of Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
Vaso Todorovic, 40, was found guilty of aiding and abetting the execution of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and the forcible transfer of Bosniak civilians from the UN protected zone of Srebrenica, trial chamber president Senadin Bektasevic announced today.
Todorovic had been first charged with genocide but the original indictment was overturned in a plea bargain deal.
"The fact that Todorovic expressed deepest remorse and regret for his actions as well as his willingness to testify in related cases were seen as mitigating factors in the final verdict," said Bektasevic.
Less than a dozen Bosnian Serbs have been convicted by Bosnian courts over the atrocity and only wartime Bosnian Serb commander Radislav Krstic has to date been convicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The eastern town of Srebrenica was put under the protection of the United Nations Protection Forces during the war but was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces commanded by General Ratko Mladic on July 11, 1995.
Men and boys among the 50,000 Muslim refugees from nearby towns and villages sheltering in Srebrenica tried to escape through the woods after the town fell but most were hunted down, detained and executed by the Serb forces.
Todorovic was found guilty of taking part in the forced resettlement of 25,000 Muslim women, children and elderly who were separated from male family members and sent by bus to areas under the command of the mainly Bosnian Muslim army.
He also participated in capturing thousands of Bosniak men trying to escape Srebrenica and escorting several hundred of them to an agricultural co-operative in the village of Kravica, Bektasevic said.
"After imprisoning the Bosniaks inside the warehouse, members of the Second Sekovici Special Police Detachment killed the detainees with automatic weapons and hand grenades, while Todorovic performed his duty of a guard so that no prisoner under attack could escape," said Bektasevic.
Thousands of victims of the Srebrenica slaughter, Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, have been found in dozens of mass graves in eastern Bosnia.
General Mladic, indicted by The Hague court for genocide for his role in the massacre, is at large.
REUTERS