Ex-Serb leader guilty of war crimes during Bosnia war

A UN court has convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of involvement in the Serb atrocities that left over 100,000 people dead throughout the Bosnian war in 1992-95.

On Thursday, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found Karadzic, 70, guilty of genocide and nine other charges, sentencing him to 40 years behind bars.

UN judges said Karadzic “bears individual criminal responsibility” for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which some 8,000 Muslim boys and men were slaughtered in the course of four days. He also committed war crimes in Bosnian towns during the war.

Karadzic was at the time a political leader and commander-in-chief of Serb forces, who stand accused of the worst atrocities during the bloody war.

The Srebrenica carnage, which is known to be the worst in Europe since World War II, took place after Bosnian Serbs ran over the Bosnian town, even though it was formally declared a UN-protected area.

Following the war, Karadzic had been on the run for more than a decade before he was arrested in 2008. He is the highest-ranking figure to stand trial at The Hague-based tribunal over the Bosnia war.