A U.N. court convicted a Bosnian Serb of atrocities Wednesday, the first verdict of an international war crimes trial since World War II.
The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquitted Dusan Tadic of all nine murder charges but found him guilty of 11 of 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Bosnia's 3 1/2-year war.The 41-year-old karate expert and former cafe owner - charged with murder and torture in and around three Serb-run camps in northwest Bosnia in 1992 - stood impassively as the verdicts were read.
The three-judge panel's 301-page ruling was the first such verdict since military tribunals in Tokyo and Nuremberg sent 17 Axis leaders to the gallows. It came a year to the day after the trial began.
Tadic was convicted of 10 charges of beatings, some considered torture, and of a broad charge of persecution that included the killings of two Muslim police officers. But he was not specifically found responsible of murder in those deaths.
The Hague tribunal has no death penalty. Tadic had faced a life sentence for any of the murder charges. It was not clear what sentence could be imposed for Wednesday's convictions.
Tadic's lawyer, Milan Vujin, said he would appeal, a decision likely to delay a July 1 sentencing hearing.
Tribunal spokesman Christian Chartier hailed the verdict as "a judicial condemnation of the ethnic cleansing policy."
Mirza Hajric, a spokesman for the Muslim president of Bosnia's joint presidency, said the verdict confirmed the Bosnian government's claims "that the Serbian regime has been undertaking, in an organized manner, crimes against humanity and genocide."
"Tadic was a hand of the genocide, but the brains - Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic - are still at large," Hajric said. "As long as they are free, chances are small for the Dayton peace accord to be implemented."
Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, and Mladic, his army chief, have both been indicted for genocide for atrocities committed by Bosnian Serb forces during the war, which ended in 1995. But Serbian authorities have refused to extradite any citizens to the U.N. court.
Tadic had pleaded not guilty to all charges, claiming he was a victim of mistaken identity.
Witness testimony of brutalities at the prison camps, while graphic, often failed to conclusively identify Tadic as the culprit.