Former Bosnian Serb soldier extradited by France last year was sentenced to 20 years in prison for war crimes by a Sarajevo court on Wednesday, the maximum penalty. Radomir Susnjar, 64, was convicted of taking part in the murder of more than two dozen Muslim citizens who were burned inside a house in Visegrad in eastern Bosnia on June 14, 1992. The mass killing was among the worst massacres in the 1992-95 war between the country's Muslim, Serb and Croat communities.
Susnjar "committed the crime against the civilian population and this court sentences him to 20 years in prison," said judge Enida Hadziomerovic. The civilians were locked in a house that was then "burned down by an explosive device," she said. Serb paramilitaries also "fired automatic rifles in the direction of the house to prevent people from fleeing," added the judge, who read the names of victims, including a two-day-old baby.
About 15 people, including relatives of victims, applauded the verdict inside the courtroom. Several survivors of the massacre, in which more than 50 people are believed to have been killed, testified during the trial. Susnjar was first arrested in France in 2014 before being released on supervision. He was then arrested again and extradited to Bosnia in June 2018.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019
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