Four Serb War Criminals Sentenced To Jail

The court "irrefutably established" that the four Serbs kidnapped Muslim citizens of Serbia, from the southwestern town of Sjeverin, Agence France Presse quoted judge Nata Mesarevic as saying.

The year-long trial was frequently interrupted, and human rights groups warned that military and police officials from Milosevic’s era also should have been brought before the court.

The Serb war criminals took the victims to the Bosnian Serb-run town of Visegrad and "tortured them there, mistreated them and then brought them to the bank of the Drina river and killed them," she added.

The group – Milan Lukic, Oliver Krsmanovic and Dragutin Dragicevic – were sentenced to 20 years in prison, while Djordje Sevic received a 15-year jail term. They were found guilty of kidnapping, torturing and murdering 16 Muslims in October 1992.

Both of Lukic, also wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and Krsmanovic, who are still at large, were tried in absentia.

Lukic, who is also wanted by the Hague-based ICTY, led a Bosnian Serb paramilitary unit during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

The Serb paramilitaries kidnapped the Muslims in October 1992 from a passenger bus near Sjeverin, a town close to the border with Bosnia. The remains of the victims have never been found.

The so-called Sjeverin case was the most serious crime that had happened on the territory of Serbia, run then by former president Slobodan Milosevic, during the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia.

Sabrija Hodzic, father of a kidnapped victim, welcomed the sentence but warned that "those who are the most responsible for this crime have remained free."

"They have sentenced the executioners, but not those who gave the orders," Hodzic said after the sentence was pronounced.