THE HAGUE: UN war crimes judges on Thursday threw out an appeal by two former top Bosnian Serb officials against their conviction, upholding a 22-year jail term imposed for their roles in “ethnic cleansing” during the 1990s conflict.

Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin had appealed against the 2013 sentence after they were convicted of leading a campaign to rid Bosnia of Muslims, Croats and other non-Serbs during the 1992-1995 conflict.

The two men were close associates of one-time Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was found guilty in March on charges of genocide and war crimes for his role in the fighting that killed more than 100,000 people and left 2.2 million others homeless.

The appeals chamber at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia dismissed in their “entirety” the appeals brought by Stanisic and Zupljanin, upheld the convictions, and “affirms the sentences of 22 years of imprisonment,” judge Carmel Agius said. Stephane Bourgon, lawyer for Stanisic, said he was “stunned” and “disillusioned” by the ruling.

“We believed we had very good grounds of appeal,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2016