Bosnian Fighter’s Sentence Increased for Serb Detainees’ Abuse
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The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Thursday upheld the verdict convicting Nezirovic, a former member of the military police with the 103rd Derventa Brigade of the Croatian Defence Council, and increased his prison sentence from two to six years.
Nezirovic was originally found guilty in February this year of the inhumane treatment of 22 Serb civilians who were imprisoned at the Rabic detention camp in Derventa from the end of April 1992 to the end of June that year.
The verdict said that he caused severe physical pain and mental suffering to the detained civilians.
It said that Nezirovic hit the prisoners on their fingers and other parts of their bodies with a baton on several occasions.
He forced one prisoner to eat grass, and humiliated others by pouring away their food, which was scarce, into a drain which they used for urination and defecation, it added.
However he was acquitted of the torture, abuse and humiliation of civilians who were transferred from Rabic to the Silos detention camp and to a department store in Tulek in Bosanski Brod.
Nezirovic was extradited to Bosnia from the US in 2015.
He was deported after the US government charged him with giving false information in his citizenship application and failing to admit that he was a member of Bosnian Croat forces.
