THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, March 30 (Hina) - The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Tuesday sentenced Bosnian Serb Miroslav Deronjic to 10 years in prison for ordering an attack on the eastern Bosnian village of Glogova in May 1992 in
which 64 Muslims were killed.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, March 30 (Hina) - The UN war crimes tribunal in The
Hague on Tuesday sentenced Bosnian Serb Miroslav Deronjic to 10 years
in prison for ordering an attack on the eastern Bosnian village of
Glogova in May 1992 in which 64 Muslims were killed.#L#
Presiding Judge Wolfgang Schomburg of Germany pointed out that the
verdict was handed down with his dissenting opinion.
Explaining his objection to the verdict, Schomburg expressed the
strongest criticism yet of the policy of plea agreements between
prosecutors and defendants, saying that admission of guilt and
cooperation was awarded with a punishment incommensurate with the
gravity of crimes committed.
The judge said that in his opinion Deronjic, who had pleaded guilty,
deserved at least 20 years in prison.
Deronjic, 50, was chairman of the so-called Crisis Staff in the
eastern Bosnian town of Bratunac and had "de facto and de jure"
control of the Serb Territorial Defence and police. In April and May
1992 he organised and supervised an ethnic cleansing campaign against
the Muslim population in the Bratunac area as a result of which 200
people were killed and more than 8,000 were expelled from their
homes.
The indictment charged Deronjic with prosecution on religious,
political and racial grounds as a crime against humanity, and was
limited only to the attack on the village of Glogova.
Following an order issued by Deronjic at the end of April 1992 that
all Muslims in the municipality of Bratunac be disarmed, Serb-led
Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), Territorial Defence, police and
paramilitary forces attacked the undefended village of Glogova,
killing 64 Muslim men. Women and children were transferred out of the
municipality by bus, so that not a single Muslim was left in the
village.
Schomburg said that for that "heinous crime" Deronjic would actually
spend only six years and eight months behind bars, recalling the
tribunal's practice of releasing convicts after they spend two-thirds
of their sentence. He added that Deronjic did not deserve compassion
because he had not shown any to the Muslims of Glogova, Bratunac and
Srebrenica.
The prosecution recommended a maximum 10-year sentence while the
defence demanded up to six years.
(Hina) vm