Serbia: UN tribunal frees former Yugoslav army officer

Belgrade, 7 July (AKI) – The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Thursday freed former Yugoslav army officer Veselin Sljivancanin, after he served two thirds of his jail term.

Sljivancanin and two other officers, Mile Mrksic and Miroslav Radic, had convicted by the tribunal for aiding and for failing to prevent a murder of some 200 Croatian prisoners on “Ovcara” farm in eastern Croatia in November 1991.

Mrksic was sentenced in September 2007 to 20 year in prison, Sljivancanin to five years and Radic was acquitted.

The tribunal’s appeals panel increased Sljivancanin’s sentence to 17 years in 2009, but in a unique move, then cut it to ten years last December.

The tribunal president Patrick Robinson said Sljivancanin was released according to the rules of the tribunal, based on “good behavior” and the fact that he had expressed remorse for all crimes committed during the 1991-1995 war that followed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

Sljivancanin’s lawyers said he already arrived in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, on Thursday afternoon and rejoined his family.

Since it was founded by the United Nations Security Council in 1993, the tribunal has indicted 161 individuals, mostly Serbs, for crimes committed in the war. More than sixty have been sentenced to over one thousand years in jail.