Bosnia's state court has convicted five ex-policemen, ethnic Serbs, of committing war crimes against Bosnian civilians during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Millan Gjokic and Bratislav Trisic were each sentenced to three years in prison, while Zoran Tanasic, Zharko Millanovic and Mladen Krajsnik were sentenced to two years in prison each.
They were found guilty of torturing Bosniaks in the Bielina area in northeastern Bosnia from April 1992 to the end of September 1994 on political, national, ethnic, cultural and religious grounds.
The defendants were acquitted of crimes against humanity, while three other defendants, Savo Mersic, Millivoje Cobic and Millan Markovic, were acquitted of all charges.
Gjokić was police commander in Janja from late 1992 to June 1993, and later became deputy commander. Tanasic, Milanovic and Krajsnik were police officers in Janja, while Trisic was an official of the State Secret Service.
Janja is located 10 kilometers south of Bielina.
Their trial began in 2016, involving three other defendants, but two of them died during the trial, while authorities said the third defendant was unable to stand trial because he was ill. .
A massacre had taken place in Bielina in early April 1992 by local Serbian paramilitaries and the Serbian Volunteer Guard, a paramilitary group led by Zhelko Raznatović, known as Arkan. Up to 80 people, mostly Bosniaks, but also ethnic Serbs, suspected of being "collaborators", were killed during the massacre.
More than 100,000 people were killed during the war in Bosnia, which ended after a US-brokered deal that divided the country into administrations, largely along ethnic lines between Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats./REL