"Serb general gets 27 years in jail; First Yugoslavian convicted of war crimes in Bosnia" September 07, 2011|By Mike Corder, Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal sentenced the former chief of the Yugoslav army to 27 years’ imprisonment yesterday for providing crucial military aid to Bosnian Serb forces responsible for the Srebrenica massacre and for a deadly four-year campaign of shelling and sniper fire in Sarajevo.
The case against General Momcilo Perisic was the first time the UN court convicted a civilian or military officer from Yugoslavia of war crimes in Bosnia, and underscored the Yugoslav army’s far-reaching support for Serb rebels in both Bosnia and Croatia who committed the worst atrocities of the Balkan conflicts in the early 1990s.
The link between the disintegrating Yugoslav federation and Serb forces in the breakaway republics has been under dispute and was a keystone of the trial in The Hague of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
Related: Back to the Balkans
Is there nothing that can be believed in my paper (sigh)?
That trial ended without a conclusion when Milosevic died in his cell in 2006 of a heart attack.
How convenient!
The former Yugoslavia is now divided into independent states that include Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia.
Perisic is a former Milosevic ally who remained Serbia’s military chief until 2008 - three years after the Bosnian and Croatian wars ended. He turned against the dictator after the Bosnian war and warned Milosevic’s regime against fomenting conflict in Kosovo, where fighting erupted after he left his post.
The UN judges convicted Perisic on charges of providing officers, troops, ammunition, and logistical support to the rebel Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia....
The judges said Perisic “knew that it was highly probable’’ Bosnian Serbs would kill, abuse, and expel Bosnian Muslims after seizing control of Srebrenica, but that he could not “reasonably have foreseen’’ the extent of the massacre, and they acquitted him of aiding and abetting extermination in the enclave....
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