The UN tribunal in the Netherlands sentenced a former Bosnian Serb police chief to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to raping and torturing Muslim women in the Serb-taken eastern town of Foca during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
Dragan Zelenovic, a 46-year-old former paramilitary leader, was indicted in 1996 for atrocities committed against non-Serbs in Foca, southeast of Sarajevo, including the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl.
He was the first suspect to admit to war crimes and crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
In exchange for his guilty plea to 7 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, prosecutors agreed last January to dismiss the remaining 7 charges against him.
His defense had asked for a sentence of 7 to 10 years, but prosecutors pushed for 10 to 15.
"The crimes to which Mr. Zelenovic has pleaded guilty were part of a pattern of sexual assault which took place over a period of several months and in many different locations and involved multiple victims," Judge Alphons Orie said on Wednesday.
"Mr. Zelenovic took direct part in the sexual abuse of victims in a number of detention facilities including multiple rapes," he added.
"Brutal beatings and sexual assaults"
Zelenovic was one of the soldiers involved in seizing Foca in April 1992.
After taking control over Foca, military police started arresting Bosnian Muslims and Croats in the town, whose population at the time was 52% percent Muslim and 45% Serb.
The non-Serb women were separated from the men and were subjected to humiliating treatment, brutal beatings and sexual assaults.
Several Bosnian Muslim women were held in houses that were effectively used as brothels operated by paramilitary troops.
On one occasion, Zelenovic allowed soldiers to rape four Muslim women who were detained in a school.
Zelenovic also participated in the repeated gang rapes of two Bosnian Muslim women, one of them aged 15, between July 15 and October 1992. He admitted that he aided and abetted in the gang rape of the woman by at least 10 soldiers, which was so violent she lost consciousness.
"The victims in this case were in a particularly vulnerable situation ... they were unarmed and defenseless and detained under brutal conditions for long periods of time," Judge Orie said, adding that many of the women didn't know whether or not they would be killed at the end of their ordeal.
Zelenovic, who was arrested in Russia in August 2005, was transferred to the ICTY in June last year after nearly 10 years on the run.
In February 2001, the UN court sentenced 3 other Bosnian Serb soldiers to up to 28 years in prison for raping, torturing, and enslaving Bosnian Muslim women and girls in Foca.
Source: IslamicAwakening
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