Two Serbian policemen jailed for 31 years for genocide

Sarajevo, April 23 (IANS/AKI) Bosnia’s war crimes court has jailed two former Serb police officers for 31 years each on charges of aiding in genocide and taking part in the killing of up to 8,000 Muslims in the town of Srebrenica in 1995.

“Radomir Vukovic, 36, and Zoran Tomic, 38, were members of the 2nd Sekovici Special Police Detachment which intended to partly exterminate a group of Muslims and help remove forcibly 40,000 civilians from the eastern enclave,” judge Senadin Bektasevic said Thursday.

He said the two participated in the capture and execution of at least 1,000 Muslim men who tried to escape Srebrenica through the woods and were detained in a warehouse in the nearby village of Kravice.

Meanwhile, a protected witness hurled insults at the war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in the Hague calling him a “sick man”.

Karadzic for the second day cross-examined the witness, listed only as KDZZ - 064, a survivor of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica.

Karadzic said that the witness, whose identity is known only to the tribunal, had made contradictory statements, testifying before the tribunal in five other cases relating to war crimes in Bosnia.

“No one lies like Serbs,” the witness responded, calling Karadzic a “sick man”.

Karadzic said that Muslim forces had committed crimes against Serbs before Srebrenica, a UN protected enclave, was overrun by Serb forces.

The witness said the UN was the “main cause of the Srebrenica tragedy” and blamed it for failing to protect Muslims.

–IANS/AKI