Milica StojanovicBelgradeBIRNFebruary 8, 202316:36The Humanitarian Law Centre said that ‘too light’ sentences handed down to four wartime Serb fighters convicted of abducting passengers from a train in Strpci in Bosnia in 1993 belittled the suffering of the victims’ families.
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Strpci railway station. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Anjci.
The Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre NGO, which monitors war crime trials, criticised on Wednesday what it called the lenient prison sentences given to four Serb fighters convicted of participation in the abduction and beating of 20 passengers a train at Stprci station in Bosnia in February 1993, all of whom later were killed.
Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday sentenced Serb fighters Gojko Lukic, Dusko Vasiljevic and Jovan Lipovac to ten years in prison each and Dragana Djekic to five years.
“The HLC believes that the sentences imposed are too light, particularly considering that all the abducted passengers were civilians, that they were citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia who were removed from the train because they were Bosniaks, that after the abduction they were abused and tortured, and then killed with their hands tied with wire behind their backs,” the NGO said in a statement.
Judge Snezana Nikolic Garotic said that when deciding on the sentences, the court bore in mind that the defendants did not commit any other criminal acts before or after the Strpci crime, that their financial situation was poor, and that Lipovac is in bad health and Djekic was a minor at the time of the crime.
But the HLC pointed out that the length of the sentences was not in accordance with Belgrade Higher Court’s usual practice in this type of case.
“With the overly lenient sentence, the Higher Court in Belgrade sent a message to the victims’ families that, although they waited 30 years for those responsible for the murder of their family members to finally be adequately punished, their suffering and pain were not recognised as important,” HLC said.
“For this reason, the HLC expects the Court of Appeal in Belgrade to accept the appeal from the [Serbian Prosecutor Office for War Crimes] and impose significantly higher sentences on the accused that correspond to the gravity of this crime,” it added.
The captives, mainly Bosniaks, were seized from the train at Strpci and taken to a school in Prelovo, where they were physically assaulted.
They were then taken to a burned-out house in the village of Musici, where they were executed. The youngest victim was 16 years old when he was killed.
The four defendants were convicted of participating in beating the captives in Prelovo and taking them to the house in Musici.
The indictment said that Gojko Lukic, Dusko Vasiljevic and Dragana Djekic were members of the Avengers paramilitary unit, led by Milan Lukic, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hague Tribunal in 2012 for war crimes in the Bosnian town of Visegrad, but not for the Strpci deaths.
Jovan Lipovac, the other defendant in the trial, was a Bosnian Serb Army soldier at the time of the crime.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
