Bosnian Serb Ex-Fighter’s Murder, Rape Conviction Upheld
The Bosnian court rejected wartime fighter Sasa Cvetkovic’s appeal against his conviction for the murder of two elderly Roma women and the rape of two Bosniaks in the Srebrenica and Bratunac areas in 1992.
The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Wednesday confirmed the verdict sentencing Sasa Cvetkovic to 12 years in prison for killing two elderly Roma women in May 1992 and raping two Bosniaks, one of them a minor, in June 1992.
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Former Bosnian Serb fighter Cvetkovic was found guilty of the murder of Roma civilians Alaga and Mejra Halilovic in the village of Kolonija, near Srebrenica.
The judge at the original trial said both were disabled and one was bedridden when Cvetkovic shot them with an automatic rifle.
He was also convicted of the rape of a minor and a 20-year-old woman in Bratunac.
Lamija Tiro, legal adviser at the Trial International NGO, welcomed the court’s decision, saying that it was “another indication that perpetrators of serious crimes, regardless of the length of time since the war, must still face justice”.
The verdict cannot be appealed.
