The Belgrade Greater Court docket on Tuesday sentenced three wartime Serb fighters to a complete of 25 years in jail for taking part within the abduction of 20 non-Serb passengers from a prepare in Strpci station in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993. All of the captive passengers had been subsequently killed.
Within the verdict, which follows a retrial, Gojko Lukic and Dusko Vasiljevic had been sentenced to 10 years in jail every and Dragana Djekic to 5 years.
In accordance with the indictment, the victims within the Strpci case, primarily Bosniaks, had been taken from a prepare at Strpci station to a college in Prelovo and assaulted. They had been then taken to a burned-out home within the village of Musici, the place they had been executed.
Households of victims criticised the size of authorized proceedings. Nail Kajevic, whose brother, Nijaz, was one of many victims, mentioned that they “can’t really feel in any respect snug [with] the truth that the trial is taking so lengthy, or that two of the 5 defendants have died, and didn’t obtain their sentences.
“Till now, no try has been made in Serbia to show and decide who the organisers and instigators of the crime had been, as a result of it was not a inconsiderate act of a bunch or a person however a coordinated, deliberate kidnapping,” Kajevic informed Radio Free Europe.
The three folks in 2023 acquired the identical sentences – however the Belgrade Court docket of Appeals quashed the first-instance verdict some months later.
For the reason that authentic trial began in 2019, two of the defendants have died: Jovan Lipovac in February 2024, whereas Ljubisa Vasiljevic died in July 2021
Ten different wartime Bosnian Serb troopers have already been convicted of involvement within the Strpci crime, in Bosnia and in Montenegro.
The Bosnian state court docket sentenced the previous commander of the Interventions Firm of the Bosnian Serb Military’s Visegrad Brigade, Boban Indjic, to 15 years in jail in January 2024.
In October 2022, the Bosnian state court docket additionally discovered seven former troopers from the Bosnian Serb Military’s Second Podrinje Brigade responsible of involvement within the abductions and murders. The decide within the trial mentioned that Milan Lukic took half within the execution of 18 of the captured civilians.
The Bosnian court docket sentenced Mico Jovicic, a paramilitary volunteer from Serbia, to 5 years in jail after making a plea discount in 2016. One other paramilitary volunteer, Nebojsa Ranisavljevic, was sentenced to fifteen years in jail for the Strpci crime by a court docket in Montenegro.
Milan Lukic, the alleged mastermind of the Strpci crime, is presently in jail in Estonia after the Worldwide Legal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, sentenced him to life imprisonment for different crimes dedicated within the Bosnian struggle, not for the Strpci killings.
He was indicted for the Strpci crimes by the Bosnian state prosecution in 2019. A BIRN evaluation famous that, throughout his trial, most of the defence witnesses portrayed Lukic as solely accountable for the Strpci crime.
The most recent verdict might be appealed.
