Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> JURIST - The Paper Chase

Legal News

: JURIST - The Paper Chase

ICTY reduces former Serb leader's sentence

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The appellate chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday partially reversed the conviction and reduced the sentence of former Bosnian Serb parliamentary leader Momcilo Krajisnik from 27 to 20 years. Krajisnik was initially convicted in 2006 on charges of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, and forced transfer of non-Serb civilians during the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict. The appellate chamber affirmed the trial chamber's ruling that Krajisnik had the intent to engage in deportation, forced transfer, and persecution of non-Serbs. It went on to hold that the trial chamber did not have any evidence that he intended to engage in crimes of murder and extermination and overturned the convictions for expanded crimes of murder, extermination, and persecution with the exception of the underlying acts of deportation and forcible transfer. At Krajisnik's 2006 trial, the ICTY found him not guilty on a charge of genocide for which prosecutors had requested a life sentence. He was instead sentenced to 27 years imprisonment. Krajisnik was initially indicted together with Biljana Plavsic, the former Bosnian Serb president, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2003 after testifying against Krajisnik. Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, with whom Krajisnik worked closely, was arrested last year and currently faces war crimes charges before the ICTY.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 17, 2009 (boomark / email).