"They consciously killed hundreds of Bosnian Muslims with the aim of permanently removing Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica." Bosnia's war crimes chamber in Sarajevo Tuesday sentenced seven Serbs to up to 42 years imprisonment over the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, in the first ruling by the local court. Six of them participated in the massacre of more than 1,000 Muslims on 13 July in the eastern Bosnian town Kravice.

"The accused did not only deprive the killed men of their basic human rights, the right to life, they also caused lasting pain to their families as some of them are still searching for the bones of their loved ones," said Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina judge Hilmo Vucinic. During the Srebrenica massacre at least one thousand Muslim men, who were captured by the Serbs, were forced into a warehouse in Kravica on 13 July. In the early evening the prisoners were executed by small arms fire, machine gun fire and the use of hand grenades.

Genocidal intent
The court found that Milenko Trifunovic and Aleksandar Radovanovic were in front of the Kravica warehouse shooting at prisoners, whilst Brano Džinic was throwing hand grenades at them. The armed guards Slobodan Jakovljevic, Branislav Medan, and Petar Mitrovic, prevented the men from escaping the killings through the windows at the rear of the storehouse. Mitrovic also fired from his automatic rifle as well. The bodies of the killed men were dumped into a mass grave that had been prepared in advance. They were later moved to other sites in order to cover up the massacre.

In addition, the court found that the commander of the Special Police Brigade Miloš Stupar, knew of the criminal acts of his subordinates, and that he failed to take measures to punish them. Four other accused in the trial, Velibor Maksimovic, Dragiša Živanovic, Milovan Matic, and Miladin Stevanovic, were acquitted of all charges because of lack of evidence.

The judges concluded that the accused perpetrated the crimes with 'genocidal intent', that is, with the aim to destroy in part a group of the Moslims. They were accordingly found guilty as co-perpetrators in the commission of the criminal offence of Genocide.

The War Crimes Chamber in Bosnia and Herzegovina
The case against the 11 Bosnian Serbs officers was the first before the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina in which the suspects were accused of genocide. It was also the first concerning crimes committed in Srebrenica.

In a bid to ease the burden on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) the Bosnian War Crimes Chamber was established in 2005. The remaining ICTY cases will be transferred to it as the UN-tribunal in The Hague is wrapping up its work.

Karadzic and Mladic
The UN tribunal in The Hague has so far sentenced six of the 19 people indicted for the Srebrenica killings. General Radislav Krstic, the highest ranking Bosnian Serb sentenced by ICTY over the massacre, was imprisoned for 35 years in 2004 for aiding and abetting genocide by the appeals chamber.

The mass-murder's alleged architect, Radovan Karadzic, was arrested in Serbia last week and transferred to the ICTY this morning. Tomorrow he will make his initial appearance before the judges in The Hague. Karadzic' military chief Ratko Mladic remains at large.

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