Court Jails 3 Bosnian Serbs for Warcrimes in Camps

The trio was found guilty for murder, illegal detention, torture, sexual assault, persecution and other crimes against humanity.

Bosnia's war crimes court gave long jail terms to three Bosnian Serbs on Friday for their part in the killing of some 100 Bosnian Muslims and Croats in detention camps during the country's 1992-95 war.

Judge Saban Maksumic jailed Dusko Knezevic for 31 years, Zeljko Mejakic for 21 years and Momcilo Gruban for 11 years for murder, illegal detention, torture, sexual assault, persecution and other crimes against humanity.

The trio operated in the Omarska and Keraterm detention camps, set up by the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb authority in 1992 near the northwestern town of Prijedor. Along with nearby Trnopolje, they became bywords for torture and abuse.

Some 7,000 Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, many of them local leaders and prominent intellectuals, were detained in the camps as part of a widespread and organised plan by Bosnian Serbs to persecute non-Serbs from the area, Maksumic said.

Knezevic was a regular visitor of Omarska and Keraterm even though he held no official position. He tortured and beat detainees to death or killed them from firearms, the judge said.

Mejakic was de facto commander at Omarska where 3,000 Muslims and Croats were kept until the end of 1992 without water and food and tortured, beaten to death and killed.

Gruban was a guard shift commander at Omarska when a group of 30-40 people went missing in July 1992 and when another large group of detainees, including up to 150 villagers of Hambarine, were shot dead.

Neither Mejakic nor Gruban sought to prevent the torture and terrorising of detainees, which included the sexual abuse of women, the judge said.

Dozens of former Prijedor inmates who travelled to Sarajevo on Friday for the verdict said the sentences were not harsh enough.

"They haven't revealed where our missing have been buried. Let these mothers find the peace," said Turhanovic Sebiha, an Omarska survivor. Some 500 detainees remain missing, she said.