Two former Bosnian-Serb army commanders, Dragan Jokic (2nd l) and Vidoje Blagojevic (2nd r), await the verdict at the UN war crimes tribunal yesterday. The two commanders were accused of war crimes for involvement in the 1995 massacre of Muslims at Srebrenica, Bosnia.

By Anthony Deutsch - The Associated Press

THE HAGUE - Two former Bosnian-Serb army commanders were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms yesterday for their roles in the 1995 massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica, Bosnia.

Col. Vidoje Blagojevic, 54, a wartime commander of the Bratunac brigade, which took part in the killing of more than 7,000 Muslims in eastern Bosnia, was sentenced to 18 years for complicity in genocide and other war crimes.

Dragan Jokic, 47, a major in the Zvornik brigade who assumed command during a week of killing at the end of the 1992-1995 war, received a nine-year sentence. He was convicted of murder, extermination and persecution on racial grounds.

Prosecutors had sought 15-20 years in prison for Jokic and 32 years for Blagojevic. Both men were acquitted of allegations of command responsibility, and the court said they had merely passed on orders, rather than given them.

The sentences were criticized by some analysts as relatively light when compared to 17-year and 27-year sentences handed down to two lower-ranking officers who pleaded guilty and testified against Blagojevic and Jokic, their former superiors.

The Srebrenica massacres were committed in July 1995 at the end of the Bosnian war after the eastern Bosnian enclave, which had been under UN protection, fell to Serb forces. Some 30,000 women, children and elderly people were packed into buses and deported. The men were separated and executed. Their bodies were dumped in mass graves.

Yesterday, the presiding judge, Liu Daqun of China, said neither Blagojevic nor Jokic were “major participants in the commission of the crimes.” Rather, they provided logistical support by supplying heavy machinery to dig graves and security for the convoys of detainees, he said.

“It has not been established that (Blagojevic) had knowledge of the executions when he rendered the assistance,” the ruling said.

In Srebrenica, the ruling was met with criticism from both Muslims and Bosnian Serbs. Dragan Petrovic, 28, a Bosnian Serb, questioned the fairness of the tribunal. “Most of the people arrested and sentenced there are Serbs,” he said.

Azem Mujic, a 61-year-old Muslim returnee to Srebrenica whose son and brother were killed in the massacre, said that “for some these verdicts are too mild but for me they can never be harsh enough.”