HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------[The conditions in Bosnia's POW detention centres have been documented as attrocious. In these centres some of the worst cases of violations of the laws of war committed by all three sides were carried out. Yet it is interesting to note that as soon as international pressure was focused on the Serbian "concentration camps" they were dismantled and opened to the Red Cross, while the Muslim and Croat-run "camps" continued to mistreat and degrade victims ceaslesly. It seems that the overall death toll in Serbian camps was in the low hundreds, a number matched by the other equally brutal and inhuman camps run by Croats and Muslims, and not 10s of thousands as claimed in 1990s propaganda. KP-Dom detention centre in Foca was one of the most notorious - routinely during the war claims were made that thousands were being held and slaughtered here in a genocidal campaign. It now emerges that 26 inmates died while in the camp. This is appaling and grotesque, but nowhere near genocide nor even the number of inmates killed by the Americans in Afghanistan, nor has it been ever established that these murders occured as part of any systematic war-time policy on the part of the Bosnian Serb leadership. In fact the directives of the war-time leadership were consistently to improve conditions in the POW detention centres, the fact that some psychologically deranged individuals choose to project their psychosis towards the detainees is a reflection of the criminal nature of war and not of any official Bosnian Serb policy towards Muslim populations in Bosnia.]
Serbian Prison Warden Convicted
By ANTHONY DEUTSCH
.c The Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - A U.N. tribunal convicted a former Serbian teacher Friday of crimes against humanity for the beatings and murder of Muslim prisoners at a wartime Bosnian prison camp and sentenced him to 7 1/2 years in prison.
The war crimes court found Milorad Krnojelac, 61, the former commander of the KP-Dom prison complex in Foca, eastern Bosnia, guilty of four counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war. He was acquitted on eight counts, including torture.
``The accused has expressed no regret for the part he played in the commission of these crimes, and only insubstantial regret that the offenses had taken place,'' presiding Australian judge David Hunt said, reading a summary of the 236-page ruling.
However, Krnojelac was ``not well experienced and perhaps not well suited'' to run a prison and did not participate directly in the crimes, the ruling said.
``This has been a case in which the accused had chosen to bury his head in the sand, and ignore the responsibilities and power which he had as warden,'' Hunt said.
Krnojelac, asked by the judge to stand for his sentencing, crossed himself when he heard the decision.
He was the 27th defendant to be convicted by the Netherlands-based tribunal since it was created in 1993. Five others were acquitted. It also was the first verdict delivered since the tribunal's highest-profile defendant, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, went on trial Feb. 12.
During the 1992-94 Bosnian war, about 1,000 civilian men, predominantly Muslims, were detained without charge at the complex in Foca and subjected to daily physical and mental abuse. Krnojelac commanded the prison for 16 months.
Non-Serbs inmates were held from four months to 2 1/2 years, during which they were starved and abused. At least 26 were beaten to death, the court concluded.
``The beatings lasted well into the evening, and the sounds of the beatings and screams were clearly heard by other detainees,'' Hunt said. The accused knew the crimes were taking place, the court found.
Prosecutors had demanded a sentence of at least 25 years. It was not immediately known if they would appeal the judgment.
The panel of three judges said the prosecution's charges that Krnojelac had been part of an anti-Muslim criminal enterprise was been proven nor his personal involvement in dozens of beatings and murders.
Krnojelac, a Yugoslav army reserve captain, taught math at an elementary school for 20 years before becoming KP-Dom warden at the war's outbreak. He has been in custody for three years and nine months, and will be freed in 2005.
AP-NY-03-15-02 0851EST
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