Italy Jails Bosniak Officer for Aid Workers’ Murders
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The court in the Italian city of Brescia sentenced Hanefija Prijic to life imprisonment on Thursday for the killing of the three Italian volunteer aid workers on Mount Radovan near Gornji Vakuf in May 1993.
“I received the verdict, the court has handed down a life sentence,” Prijic’s lawyer Almin Dautbegovic confirmed to BIRN.
Dautbegovic added that he will appeal against the verdict.
The three Italian volunteers were in a humanitarian aid convoy from Brescia that was stopped on May 29, 1993 by Prijic, who was the former commander of the Third Battalion of the Bosnian Army’s 317th Mountain Brigade.
The goods in the convoy were seized and the aid workers were taken to a nearby forest, where they were shot.
Prijic was convicted of the same crime in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2002 and sentenced to 13 years in prison, which he served.
But he was then arrested in Dortmund in Germany in October 2015 on the request of the Italian authorities.
In February 2016, he was extradited to Italy to stand trial.
