Bosnian Serb Fighter Jailed for Bihac Bosniaks’ Murders
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Under the first-instance verdict in April 2016, Stanarevic, a former military policeman with the 15th Bihac Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, was found guilty of having participated in the murders of at least ten Bosniak civilians in the village of Hrgar near Bihac.
According to the verdict, in the period between June 24 and the first half of July 1992, Stanarevic, who was accompanied by six other Bosnian Serb Army troops, went to a tractor repair shop in the village of Ripac where civilians were detained.
At least ten people were selected from the group, tied up and transported to Hrgar by truck.
The verdict said that Stanarevic personally killed at least three civilians and ordered the others to get off the truck and go to the nearby Bezdan pit, where the other soldiers killed them.
The court determined that Stanarevic participated in throwing the dead bodies into the pit.
Eighty-three bodies were exhumed from the pit in 1997.
The first-instance verdict also said that Stanarevic participated in the persecution of the Bosniak population in Ripac, Cukovi, Orasac, Klis and Kulen-Vakuf, on ethnic, national and religious grounds.
Both the prosecution and defence filed appeals against the first-instance verdict, but the appeals chamber rejected them, saying they were unfounded.
