THE HAGUE, Sept 27: The United Nations war crimes court sentenced Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik to 27 years in prison on Wednesday for his role in Bosnia’s ‘ethnic cleansing’, but acquitted him of genocide.

Momcilo Krajisnik is one of the highest ranking Bosnian Serb politicians to be convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) over the 1992-1995 Bosnia war, in which some 200,000 people died.

The verdict was met with outrage from Bosnian victims’ groups who said they were shocked Krajisnik was acquitted of genocide.

The judges concluded that although Krajisnik was part of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at driving Muslims and Croats out of parts of Bosnia, and there was some evidence that genocidal acts did take place, it could not be proved that he had intended to commit genocide.

Krajisnik, a close ally of fugitive Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, “knew about and intended mass detention and expulsion of civilians”, the judges said.

“Mr Krajisnik wanted the Muslim and the Croat population moved out of Bosnian Serb territory in large numbers and accepted that a heavy price of suffering, death and destruction was necessary to achieve Serb domination and a viable statehood,” Orie said.

Krajisnik, 61, his face dominated by his greying brows and shock of grey hair, listened to the verdict without emotion.

In the early years of the war, Bosnian Serb forces launched widespread attacks on Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat villages, killing many people and forcing the remainder to leave.

They also set up detention camps where thousands of non-Serbs were held.—AFP