Slobodan Davidovic, 52, was given a 14-year prison sentence for involvement in the murder of six young Bosnian Muslim men, three of whom were under age, in the village of Godinska Bara near Trnovo, eastern Bosnia, in the summer of 1995, and a nine-year sentence for the physical and mental abuse of a Croatian soldier in a makeshift prison in the village of Bobota near Vinkovci, eastern Croatia, in late October 1991.
Presiding Judge Miroslav Sovanj did not find any mitigating circumstances for the accused, saying that Davidovic was a mature person when he committed the two crimes and that after the war and his service in the Scorpions unit he returned to his village, Sidski Banovci, near Vinkovci, as if nothing had happened.
Sovanj said that witness testimonies and a video recording of the execution of the six Bosniaks proved beyond any doubt that the accused had participated in the inhumane treatment of the prisoner of war and the murder of the Bosniaks. He noted that the video recording indicated that Davidovic had no mercy or sympathy for the victims.
The court rejected as unfounded Davidovic's statements that he had been forced to commit the crimes because otherwise he himself would have been killed, and that he was not present in Bobota at the time and that someone else used his name.
Davidovic told his lawyer after the sentencing hearing that he would appeal the judgement.
Davidovic will be remanded in custody until the sentence becomes final.