Bosnia Court Jails Serb Ex-Soldier Over Srebrenica

Mladen Blagojevic was one of four Bosnian Serb wartime military policemen accused of killing, apprehending and inhuman treatment.

Bosnia's war crimes court jailed a Bosnian Serb ex-soldier for seven years on Thursday for inhuman treatment of Bosnian Muslim detainees captured in Srebrenica in July 1995.

Mladen Blagojevic was one of four Bosnian Serb wartime military policemen accused of killing, apprehending and inhuman treatment of some of up to 3,000 Muslim prisoners kept in schools in eastern Bosnia after Srebrenica fell.

A lack of evidence meant he was convicted only on the lesser charges while the other defendants were acquitted.

"Mladen Blagojevic is found guilty ... of willingly taking part in persecution of the civilian Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population with a goal to commit inhuman acts," presiding judge Stanisa Gluhajic told the court.

Bosnian Serb forces massacred about 8,000 Muslims in the five days after they took over Srebrenica, where about 40,000 Muslim refugees were put under the protection of the United Nations peacekeepers during the 1992-95 war.

Women and young children were bussed to areas controlled by the Bosnian Muslim-dominated army while men and older boys were taken to schools and warehouses in eastern Bosnia and on to places of execution where they were shot and put in mass graves.

The judge said witnesses saw Blagojevic firing a machine gun at a Muslim standing near the window of a school in the eastern town of Bratunac, where hundreds of Muslims were detained. The witnesses were outside so they could not tell if the man died.

He said three other suspects were acquitted because prosecutors failed to present enough evidence, a trend criticised by associations of Srebrenica survivors, families of victims and even the court's president.

Prosecutors said they would appeal.

So far, some 5,000 victims of the Srebrenica massacre have been found in mass graves across Bosnia and identified.