THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – Appeals judges at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal on Friday upheld genocide convictions against two senior Bosnian Serbs for their roles in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the first final judgment for genocide by the United Nations court.
Vujadin Popovic and Ljubisa Beara, convicted of the most serious offense in the war crimes statute, were high-ranking security officers with the Bosnian Serb army that overran Muslim forces and thinly armed U.N. troops in the Srebrenica enclave in July 1995 and subsequently murdered some 8,000 Muslim men and boys, Europe’s worst massacre since World War II.
A small part of both men’s 2010 convictions was overturned in Friday’s ruling, but Presiding Judge Patrick Robinson upheld the vast majority and reaffirmed their life sentences – the harshest punishment ever handed down by the court. The appeals court also added fresh convictions for both men for conspiracy to commit genocide.
In a lengthy appeals decision at the end of the court’s biggest trial, two other Bosnian Serbs also had their sentences of 35 and 13 years’ imprisonment upheld, while one had his 19-year sentence cut by one year.
Two more Bosnian Serbs were convicted at the original trial. One of them did not appeal and the other has since died.