War Crime Sentence Is Reduced |
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004/04/21 08:16 Shanghai Daily |
The UN war crimes tribunal reduced a Bosnian Serb general's sentence to 35 years from 46 years for his role in the killings of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in a UN-protected enclave. They said he was not the "principal perpetrator" as originally convicted. But in a key decision, the appeals court in The Hague, Netherlands, rejected a defense argument that the killing of 7,500 men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995 fell short of the worst of all crimes. The judges said the slaughter at Srebrenica "should be called by its proper name: genocide." General Radislav Krstic, 56, was convicted in 2001, in the only genocide conviction handed down since the Yugoslav tribunal was created in 1993 to prosecute war crimes in the Balkans. The determination that genocide occurred at Srebrenica was important for the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who also is accused of being part of a genocidal conspiracy against Bosnia's Muslim population. The five-judge appeals court overturned Krstic's conviction as being a "principal perpetrator" of genocide, agreeing with the defense that he had no intent to cause the extinction of Srebrenica's Muslims. But it said his knowledge that thousands of Muslims were being executed, and the involvement of his troops in their deaths, meant he was guilty of "aiding and abetting genocide," a lesser crime. The court ruled that Krstic's conviction for planning and participating the executions was based on circumstantial evidence that was partly contradicted later, and said it should be "set aside." (The Associated Press) |
【英语学习论坛】【评论】【大 中 小】【打印】【关闭】 |