Rebel leader convicted of war crimes

THE Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted a wartime leader of Croatia’s rebel Serbs of murder, torture and persecution yesterday and sentenced him to 35 years in prison for a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign of non-Serbs in Croatia.

Judges said Milan Martic, 52, was responsible for hundreds of murders from 1991, when Serbs in the Krajina region of southern Croatia rebelled and set up a breakaway mini-state until 1995, when Croatian forces recaptured the area. He was also convicted of ordering two days of indiscriminate cluster bomb shelling of the Croatian capital Zagreb in May 1995 that killed at least seven civilians and injured more than 200.

Most of the crimes were “committed against elderly people, persons held in detention and civilians. The special vulnerability of these victims adds to the gravity of the crimes,” said Judge Bakone Moloto.