THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 17 (Hina) - Bosnian Croat Zdravko Mucic was released from the custody of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Friday morning following a decision on his early release after he served two-thirds of his
sentence, the tribunal said in a statement.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 17 (Hina) - Bosnian Croat Zdravko Mucic was
released from the custody of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague
on Friday morning following a decision on his early release after he
served two-thirds of his sentence, the tribunal said in a
statement. #L#
"Following a Decision on 9 July 2003 by the President of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Judge
Theodor Meron, to grant Zdravko Mucic?s Request for early release,
Zdravko Mucic was released this morning from the Tribunal's
Detention Unit," the statement said.
Mucic was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for crimes against
Serb prisoners of the Celebici detention camp in central Bosnia in
1993/94. He is the sixth person convicted by the tribunal to serve
out his sentence.
Due to the length of the trial, he served his sentence in the
tribunal's detention unit in the Scheveningen district of The
Hague.
As the first defendant in the Celebici case, Mucic was sentenced to
seven years in jail on 16 November 1998. His sentence was increased
to nine years by a new trial chamber during the appeal. The appeal
chamber upheld the sentence on 8 April this year. Mucic has been in
custody since 18 March 1996 when he was arrested in Austria.
Mucic, who was commander of the Celebici camp, was convicted
together with Bosnian Muslims Hazim Delic, his deputy, and Esad
Landzo, a camp guard. The two were sentenced to 18 and 15 years in
prison respectively. They were given harsher prison terms because
they had personally tortured and killed camp inmates. Delic and
Landzo are serving their sentences in Finland.
(hina) vm