War crimes tribunal gives Bosnian Serb life sentence

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The U.N. war crimes tribunal handed down its first life sentence Thursday, convicting a prominent Bosnian Serb political leader of the extermination and persecution of Bosnian Muslims but acquitting him of genocide.

Milomir Stakic, a 41-year-old doctor, was accused of establishing a network of brutal prison camps where hundreds of Muslims were killed and thousands were tortured, raped or treated with extreme brutality in 1992 during the Bosnian war.

Stakic was found guilty on five counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes -- specifically extermination, murder and persecution. He was acquitted on three counts of genocide, complicity in genocide and inhumane acts.

"Dr. Milomir Stakic is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment" but will be eligible for parole after 20 years, Judge Wolfgang Schomburg told the court. Stakic looked stunned as he stood and heard his sentence.

The judge said the maximum penalty -- though it had not been imposed before -- was "not restricted to the most serious crime" of genocide.

The tribunal cannot give the death penalty, and all charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity carry a possible life sentence.

"The trial chamber has not found this case to be a case of genocide, rather a serious case of persecution, deportation and extermination," Schomburg said, reading a summary of the tribunal's decision.

It was the third time the court has handed down an acquittal of genocide, the most serious crime to come before the court and the hardest to prove. One person, Bosnian general Radislav Krstic, has been convicted of genocide in the court's 10-year history.

Until Thursday, Krstic's 46-year sentence was the longest the tribunal had given. His appeal is pending.

The balding, bearded Stakic was accused in his role in the camps set up in the Prijedor region of northwestern Bosnia during the summer of 1992.

The outcome of his trial was watched closely for its possible influence on the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who faces two counts of genocide among 66 charges.

Without referring to the Milosevic case, however, the judge said the genocide ruling applied only to Stakic and should not mean another trial cannot reach another conclusion when presented with other evidence.

To prove genocide, the prosecution must establish a prior intent to destroy an ethnic group wholly or in part. In Prijedor, the ruling said, the objective was to displace the non-Serb population, and "this cannot be equated with the intent to destroy it."

Stakic claims he was a "marionette" in Bosnian Serb wartime politics and had no real power.

But the court ruled that he actively carried out his duties as president of the Prijedor administration, signing orders that perpetuated hatred of non-Serbs and assisting military campaigns of "ethnic cleansing" of tens of thousands of civilians.

"Dr. Stakic was one of the main actors in the prosecutorial campaign," the judge said. "The primary aim was to dispose of the non-Serb population to achieve a pure Serb state."

Stakic presided over establishment of two notorious detention centers where thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats were held captive until international exposure forced the Serbs to close them.

His indictment listed incidents of murder and brutality, such as the killing of 120 people taken in two buses from the Keraterm and Omarska camps in August 1992, the month the camps were closed.

Stakic has been at the tribunal's detention unit since he was handed over by Serb authorities in March 2001. In the seven months of hearings that ended last April, 101 witnesses testified.

Both sides have two weeks to appeal.

The tribunal's only genocide conviction involved Krstic's role in the July 1995 killings of at least 7,500 Bosnian Muslims in the enclave of Srebrenica, then a U.N. protected zone.

The court's two most-wanted suspects, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and wartime military commander Ratko Mladic, were also indicted on genocide charges for the massacres.

This week's hearings in the Milosevic trial were canceled because of concerns about his health. The trial reconvenes Aug. 25 after the court's three-week summer break.