Bosnian Serb Convicted for Foca Camp Horrors
By Abigail Levene
Originally published by Reuters, March 15, 2002
THE HAGUE (Reuters) — The Hague war crimes court on Friday sentenced a Bosnian Serb former maths teacher to 7-1/2 years in prison for crimes committed while he commanded a nightmarish prison camp in 1992-3.
Prosecutors had sought a minimum 25-year term for Milorad Krnojelac, who denied multiple charges of murdering, torturing and enslaving hundreds of Muslim civilians including the mentally handicapped and seriously ill.
Krnojelac, 61, was warden of the so-called KP Dom prison in Foca, southeastern Bosnia, where up to 760 inmates at a time suffered overcrowding, starvation, forced labor and constant physical and psychological assault.
"Among the detained, there were young and elderly, ill, wounded, physically incapacitated and mentally disturbed persons," presiding Judge David Hunt said as he rendered his judgement at the U.N. Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.
The ruling was a reminder of the everyday evil inflicted in Bosnia during the 1992-5 war, for which Slobodan Milosevic is charged with genocide at his Hague trial that began on February 12. Milosevic was Serbian president at the time.
Krnojelac was convicted on four counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes of persecution, inhumane acts and cruel treatment based on the beatings, imprisonment and appalling living conditions in which the non-Serb detainees were kept.
Cleared of eight counts including torture, murder and enslavement, the short, bespectacled Bosnian Serb waved to the public gallery before leaving the courtroom after the verdict.
Clad in dark suit and tie and white shirt, Krnojelac crossed himself as the Australian judge had him stand to hear his sentence. He received credit for the three years and nine months he had already spent in detention and for any more time he stays in custody before it is decided where he will serve his term.
BYWORD FOR RAPE
Serb forces overran Foca in spring 1992, arrested Muslim villagers and separated the men from the women. Thousands of Muslims and other non-Serbs were unlawfully confined and countless women and girls were systematically raped.
Foca became a byword for wartime rape when the Hague court convicted three former Bosnian Serb commanders in February 2001 in a landmark prosecution of rape and sexual enslavement as crimes against humanity.
More than 1,600 Muslims from Foca were registered as missing after the Bosnian war. Mass graves have been found near the town containing dozens of bodies believed to be those of massacred inmates of the camp Krnojelac commanded.
Krnojelac was transferred into tribunal detention in June 1998 and pleaded not guilty to all charges. His trial began in October 2000 and lasted 76 days.
The three judges found Krnojelac "aided and abetted" the main offenders at KP Dom, by encouraging or failing to prevent crimes committed by his subordinates.
But they said he did not share the intent of those chief offenders and stressed the fact he had been a teacher for most of his working life before being appointed camp commander.
"He was not well experienced, and perhaps not so well suited, for the task which he undertook. Moreover, … his participation in these crimes was limited to his aiding and abetting the criminality of others," said Judge Hunt.
"Even then, his encouragement to those who did participate in these crimes was largely by reason of his inaction."
