"The appeal of the defendant has been partly upheld, and the verdict of the lower courts has been changed, and consequently, it has been ruled that the prison term should last 15 years," the Supreme Court said in a press release on Thursday.
In July 2002, the Karlovac County Court found Abdic guilty of war crimes and sentenced him to 20 years in jail. That court found him guilty of ordering, planning and organising concentration camps in the area of Velika Kladusa, the western Bosnian area bordering with Croatia where he set up the so-called autonomous province whose supreme commander and president he was.
In the camps, detainees were inhumanely treated and forced to work. At least three persons died of injuries they sustained while they were abused. Approximately 5,000 people were detained in those camps, according to the Karlovac court's verdict.
Abdic, whom his followers called 'Baba', which means father in the spoken dialect of Bosnian Muslims, fell apart with the then Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic in 1993. After that Abdic set up the unrecognised province in the area where he had a food-processing plant. He was tough towards his opponents, most of whom were local Muslims who supported Izetbegovic and the Party of Democratic Action (SDA).
Abdic appealed the Karlovac court's verdict, but the Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the lower court in April last year.
The duration of his sentence was modified after he again lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court, which overruled most of his objections but concluded that the sentence was too high "in light of the entire war situation and all the grave war crimes that were committed on the territory of newly-formed states after the disintegration of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
The Court says it is evident that the defendant committed serious war crimes against his fellow citizens and members of his people (Bosnian Muslims) in order to retain powers and authority and that, therefore, he deserves a severe public reprimand which should include a warning for the future in order to prevent recurrence of similar conduct.
Deciding to reduce the sentence, the Supreme Court took into account Abdic's age -- 65.
The time he spent in custody, in which he was taken into June 2001, will be counted into the sentence.
The indictment against him was issued in the Bosnian town of Bihac, but Croatia took over the proceedings given that Abdic has dual citizenship and that the two countries regulated similar cases by the 1996 bilateral agreement on legal assistance.