prijava
SARAJEVO, September 14 (FENA) - Former Bosniak Territorial Defense fighter Izet Arifović was sentenced to ten years in prison for murdering civilians in the Srebrenica and Bratunac areas in 1992, and Suad Smajlović jailed for a year and two months for mutilating the corpses.
The Bosnian state court on Friday found Izet Arifović guilty of killing civilians captured in the village of Zalazje, near Srebrenica, on July 12, 1992, who had previously turned in their weapons, and killing another civilian in the village of Ratkovići, near Bratunac, on June 21, 1992, BIRN reports.
The court found Suad Smajlović guilty of mutilating the bodies of the dead people by firing his gun at them, but he was acquitted of participating in the murders.
A third defendant, Amir Salihović, was acquitted of unlawfully arresting nine Serbs after a military operation in Zalazje on July 12, 1992 and taking them to an unknown place, after which they have never been seen again.
“The chamber did not accept the alibis offered by Arifović, who claimed to have been severely wounded at the time and had difficulties walking, and Smajlović, who said he was not present in Srebrenica,” said presiding judge Stanisa Gluhajić.
Gluhajić said meanwhile that the prosecution failed to present evidence linking Salihović to the disappearance of Serbs from Zalazje.
The verdict can be appealed.
The arrests of the three defendants last year were welcomed by Serb victims’ groups, who often accuse the Bosnian judicial authorities of not targeting perpetrators of crimes against Serbs.
But the arrests angered Bosniak veterans and war victims’ associations, who argued that the prosecution should priorities cases against Serb perpetrators of the 1995 genocide, when more than 7,000 men and boys from Srebrenica were killed.
(FENA) S. R.
