Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic convicted of genocide, sentenced to 40 years
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was convicted of genocide and nine other charges Thursday at a UN court, and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
UN judges said on Thursday that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was criminally responsible for the siege of Sarajevo and crimes against humanity in other towns and villages during the Bosnian war of the 1990s
He was acquitted by The Hague tribunal of a first count of genocide in connection with the Bosnian municipalities, but judges have yet to rule on a second genocide charge – Karadzic’s involvement in the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Europe’s worst since the second world war, in which 8,000 Muslims died.
Presiding judge O-Gon Kwon said the three-year Sarajevo siege, during which the city of Serbs, Muslims and Croats was shelled and sniped at by besieging Bosnian Serb forces, could not have happened without Karadzic’s support.
Justice is slow but it’s coming, so we hope that this time the court will have enough courage to say what really happened, because they only need courage
UN judges have begun the lengthy process of reading their verdict in the trial.