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The court in Sarajevo on Wednesday ruled that Saric, a former chief of police in the wartime Serb municipality of Centar, was guilty of sending some of the detained civilians to prison camps, and others to their deaths.
On June 16, 1992, the court found, Bosniak men from the Nahorevo neighbourhood were told to go to the local community centre, where they were surrounded and taken to the Jagomir psychiatric hospital in Sarajevo and imprisoned.
Six days later, Saric divided the men into three groups: the first group of more than 60 prisoners was sent to Bosnian Army-controlled territory to be freed, while the second group of 29 was sent to Serb detention camps in Vogosca near Sarajevo.
The police chief left third group of men, who were labelled potential troublemakers, at the psychiatric hospital, “knowing they were going to be killed”, said presiding judge Mira Smajlovic.
A group of 11 prisoners was later executed in the Skakavac area near the capital.
Smajlovic said that witnesses’ testimony about how Saric identified and conducted himself had been crucial to the guilty verdict.
“Some said he openly introduced himself as ‘Saric’, while others said he behaved like a chief,” the judge explained.
Saric however was acquitted of a part of the indictment which charged him with forced disappearance of a man who disappeared without trace on June 14, 1992.
While deciding on the sentence, the court took into account Saric’s good behaviour in the courtroom, the fact that he has a family, and that he released some of the prisoners.
During the trial, Saric had claimed that he was innocent.
“I feel sorry for all the people who got killed, but I believe that I did not contribute anything to their deaths,” he said in his last statement to the court in June.
The verdict can be appealed.
