UN war crimes tribunal reduces jail term of Bosnian Serb camp commander
The former commander of a Bosnian Serb detention camp who personally tortured inmates during the Balkans conflict in
the 1990s will serve a 20-year jail term after the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia reduced
his sentence today by three years.
The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled that the trial chamber
had erred when it sentenced Dragan Nikolic to 23 years' jail because it gave too much weight to the possibility that he
might receive an early release.
Summarizing the judgment, Judge Theodor Meron, who presided over Mr. Nikolic's appeal, said the trial chamber had
"clearly – although not expressly – entered into a calculation to reflect the practice of the International Tribunal of
granting early release after the convicted person has served two-thirds of his sentence."
Four of the five judges hearing Mr. Nikolic's appeal in The Hague – Judge Meron, Judge Fausto Pocar, Judge Mehmet Güney
and Judge Inés Mónica Weinberg de Roca – upheld this ground. Judge Mohamed Shahabuddeen dissented. All other grounds of
appeal were dismissed.
Under a plea bargain agreement with prosecutors in 2003, Mr. Nikolic had pleaded guilty to four charges of crimes
against humanity relating to his role as commander of the Sušica camp, close to the town of Vlasenica in eastern Bosnia
and Herzegovina, in 1992.
About 8,000 Muslim and other non-Serb men, women and children were confined to a hangar in the Sušica camp between May
and October 1992 as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign in the area. Many were subsequently murdered.
The tribunal found that Mr. Nikolic beat many inmates with weapons such as iron bars, axe handles, rifle butts, metal
knuckles, metal pipes and truncheons. He also removed or assisted in the removal of female inmates knowing that they
were to be raped or sexually abused at nearby locations.