FLASH NEWS
First Srebrenica genocide convict transferred to prison in Estonia
2025-04-11 09:04:15 / BOTA
Radislav Krstic, former commander of the Drina Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska, convicted of the Srebrenica genocide to 35 years in prison, will continue to serve his sentence in Estonia, the International Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals announced on April 10.
He was found guilty by the Hague Tribunal of genocide against more than 8,000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica, of persecution, as a crime against humanity, and of murder.
Krstic was arrested on 2 December 1998 and taken into custody in The Hague. He was sentenced to prison in April 2004, and in December of that year he was transferred to the United Kingdom to serve his sentence.
While in a British prison, he was attacked – and injured – by fellow prisoners, which led to his transfer to Poland in 2013. Then, in November 2023, he returned to The Hague again, having served two-thirds of his sentence in Poland and under Polish law he was due to be released.
The Estonian government subsequently notified the court in The Hague that it is willing to take this convict to continue serving his sentence, which ends on November 23, 2033, announced the president of the court, Graciela Gatti Santana, the successor court to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Krstic is the first person to be convicted for the genocide committed in Srebrenica in July 1995.
He has repeatedly requested to be offered a pardon and early release, but these requests have been rejected by Gatti Santana.
In his final plea, he admitted responsibility for the genocide in Srebrenica and, among other things, said that he knew that “some members of the General Staff intended to commit genocide,” but that they “did not have sufficient forces to carry out the executions” without “using the Drina Corps,” which Krstic commanded at the time.
" If one day I am released and if the president of the Mechanism agrees to my release and if the families of the victims allow this, I want to go to Potocari once again in my life, bow before the victims and ask for forgiveness ," he wrote in his request.
Krstic, who is 76 years old, had requested in his request to the court that his health problems be taken into account.
He has stated that he suffers from a number of chronic illnesses, suffers from severe pain due to blood vessel problems and atrophy after the amputation of his leg. He has also said that he is anemic and has high cholesterol and serious heart problems.
" I am not convinced that he has been sufficiently rehabilitated ," said the presiding judge, Graciela Gatti Santana, in rejecting his request for early release. She made this decision in February of this year.
Republika Srpska Army forces killed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in July 1995. More than 50 people have been sentenced to nearly 700 years in prison for genocide and other crimes committed in the Srebrenica region.
Among those convicted are the then-President of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, and the commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, Ratko Mladic. Both have been sentenced to life imprisonment./REL
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