Court sentences Bosnian Serb ex-soldier for war crimes in Visegrad

Fena

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced in the first-instance verdict Bosnian Serb war veteran Radomir Susnjar to twenty years in prison for war crimes against Bosniaks in the eastern town of Visegrad.

The indictment issued in 2017 charged Susnjar with committing a war crime in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad in 1992, when, according to the indictment, 57 Bosniaks were forcibly locked and burned in a house. 

Prosecutors allege that Susnjar, along with other members of the Army of Republika Srpska and Bosnian Serb paramilitary units, had illegally captured, robbed and imprisoned Bosniak civilians from the village of Koritnik in a house in Visegrad's Pionirska Street.

The house was then set ablaze, while the perpetrators shot at it to prevent those captured inside from escaping.

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According to the court documents of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), some 3,000 Bosniaks were killed in the mass murders in Visegrad and its surrounding areas during the 1990s conflict in Bosnia, including hundreds of women and children.

The Tribunal convicted Milan Lukic and Sredoje Lukic in 2009 for war crimes in Visegrad, finding Milan Lukic, among other crimes, responsible for the murder of the Bosniak civilians in the burning house.