The Trial Chamber sentenced Nikolic, Assistant Commander for Security and Intelligence of the Bosnian Serb Army Bratunac Brigade, to 27 years in prison, following a deal with the Prosecutor's Office which included Nikolic's pleading guilty to persecuting Bosnian Muslim civilians in Srebrenica in 1995. In exchange, the prosecution dropped charges for genocide, extermination and other crimes.
"Specifically, Momir Nikolic admitted that he was involved in coordinating and organizing the Bosnian Serb army operation to kill over 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, and deport many thousands of women and children to Muslim-held territory," the ICTY reported.
The prosecution asked that Nikolic be sentenced to 15-20 years in prison while the defence asked that he be sentenced to no more than 10 years.
The Trial Chamber sentenced him to 27 years imprisonment for this crime.
Nikolic appealed his sentence, arguing that the Trial Chamber made errors in determining it. The Bosnian Serb submitted twelve grounds of appeal, the ICTY said. The Appeals Chamber accepted three of them. First, it found that the Trial Chamber considered Momir Nikolic"s role in the crimes he committed both in determining the seriousness of the crime and, again, as an aggravating circumstance. The Appeals Chamber agreed with the defence that Momir Nikolic's role in the crimes was thus considered twice in determining the sentence. In the opinion of the Appeals Chamber, this was an error by the Trial Chamber, the ICTY reported today on its web site.
Second, the Appeals Chamber agreed with both parties that the Trial Chamber relied significantly upon a false translation of remarks made by Momir Nikolic"s defence counsel during his closing argument, the ICTY said. The defence counsel said that "around 7.000 men were killed" and the translation read that "only 7.000 persons were killed in this campaign", the UN war crimes tribunal reported. The Appeals Chamber concluded that the Trial Chamber"s expression of 'shock' at this statement shows that the translation error had a negative influence on the determination of Momir Nikolic"s sentence, the Hague tribunal said.
Third, the Appeals Chamber agreed that the Trial Chamber made mistakes when assessing Momir Nikolic"s cooperation with the Prosecution and thus attached insufficient weight to this mitigating circumstance, the ICTY said.
Momir Nikolic remains in the custody of the Tribunal until arrangements for his transfer to the state in which he will serve his sentence are finalised. He has been in detention since 2 April 2002.