Sarajevo - The War Crimes Chamber of Bosnia-Herzegovina's State Court sentenced Tuesday in Sarajevo Bosnian Serb Dusan Fustar to nine years in jail after he admitted to crimes committed during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In his final hearing, a day before the verdict, Fustar expressed his regrets and asked for forgiveness for the crimes he committed, reports said.
Reports said that Fustar, 54, admitted his participation in the mistreatment and persecution of the non-Serb civilian population - Bosnian Muslims and Croats - in the north-western Bosnian town of Prijedor during the period from late April until the end of 1992.
As the commander of one of three guard shifts in the Bosnian Serb detention facility Keraterm, near Prijedor, Fustar allegedly participated in the selection of some 20 male detainees who were later executed.
More than 7,000 non-Serb civilians were captured in the wider area of Prijedor at the early stages of the 1992-1995 war.
They were then taken to the Keraterm, Omarska or Trnopolje detention facilities around Prijedor, where they held in "inhumane conditions and subjected to grave physical, psychological and sexual abuse."
Fustar voluntarily surrendered in January 2002 and was immediately transferred to The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
The ICTY in May 2006 transferred the case to the Sarajevo-based War Crimes Chamber of the State Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The time Fustar spent in prison so far would be included in the sentence, so he could be released after some three years.
In a separate case Bosnia's war crimes chamber on Tuesday sentenced another three Bosnian Serbs accused of war crimes.
Mirko Pekez, called Peka, 43, was sentenced to 29 years in prison while another Mirko Pekez, called Guzan, 42, and Milorad Savi, 37, were sentenced to 21 years in jail each.
The three were accused of war crimes against non-Serb civilians in the village of Ljoljici-Cerkazovici near the central Bosnian town of Jajce.
As members of the Bosnian Serb Army and reserve police force in September 1992 they allegedly captured local Bosnian Muslim civilians in the village, planning to take them away and execute them at another location.
Once they arrived at the location, the accused, according to the indictment, ordered the prisoners to "line up next to the edge of an abyss ... and then opened fire on them, killing 23 and wounding four people."
The court noted that the aggravating circumstances for the three were the number of people killed, including 10 women and three children.
Pekez, Pekez and Savic were detained in November 2007.
