ROME, Feb 18 (Hina) - Yugoslav People's Party (JNA) pilot Emir Sisic was sentenced to 15 years of prison by a court of appeals in Rome, after being sentenced to life imprisonment in 2003 for shooting down a European Community
helicopter and killing five European Commission monitors in Croatia in 1992.
ROME, Feb 18 (Hina) - Yugoslav People's Party (JNA) pilot Emir Sisic
was sentenced to 15 years of prison by a court of appeals in Rome,
after being sentenced to life imprisonment in 2003 for shooting down a
European Community helicopter and killing five European Commission
monitors in Croatia in 1992.#L#
On 7 January 1992 Sisic shot down one of two EC helicopters over
Podrute near the northern town of Novi Marof, killing one French and
five Italian monitors.
He was sentenced in Croatia to the maximum prison sentence of twenty
years.
After he was arrested in Hungary in line with an Interpol arrest
warrant issued by the Croatian authorities, Sisic was handed over to
Italy on 21 June 2002, as four of the victims were Italian citizens.
At last year's trial, Judge Luisanna Figliolia sentenced Sisic to life
imprisonment.
The court of appeals reduced the sentence to 15 years taking, most
probably, as a mitigating circumstance the fact that Sisic opened fire
on the helicopter because he acted on an order from his command in
Bihac.
(Hina) rml sb