Serbian paramilitaries convicted of Srebrenica war crimes

Apr 10, 2007, 11:31 GMT

Belgrade - The Serbian war crimes court found four former paramilitaries guilty on Tuesday of participating in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia.

The former members of the 'Scorpions' paramilitary group were featured in a video account of the execution of six Muslims near Srebrenica in 1995.

The tape was shown first at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague (ICTY), during the trial of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2005.

Two of the men received 20-year sentences.

Pero Petrasevic, who admitted to participating in the killings earlier in the trial, received 13 years, while the fourth 'Scorpion' was sentenced to five years in prison.

One of the five accused, Aleksandar Vukov, was cleared of the charges.

The verdict is the first given by a Serbian court relating to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995 in which some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed.

Then Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and general Ratko Mladic, wanted by the ICTY for alleged involvement in the massacre, have been on the run for over a decade.

The five 'Scorpions' were arrested in the spring of 2003 shortly after the showing of the incriminating video. The trial began in Belgrade in November 2005.