Ex-Bosnian Serb police chief jailed for war crimes

Bosnia's war crimes court on Wednesday sentenced a former Bosnian Serb police chief to 14 years in prison for his role in the killing of Muslim civilians during the 1992-1995 siege of Sarajevo. Goran Saric was "found guilty of crimes against humanity for his role in the expulsion, illegal detention and execution of Muslim civilians" in June and July 1992, judge Mira Smajlovic said as she pronounced the verdict. Saric was charged with ordering the arrest of about 100 Muslims in the Sarajevo suburb of Nahorevo, where he was police chief. Eight of the victims were executed, 29 were placed in a detention camp and 60 were sent to the frontline during the fighting between the mainly Muslim Bosnian army and Serb troops, the court heard. During and after the war, Saric was also commander of a Bosnian Serb special police unit. He was arrested in November 2011. Some 100,000 people were killed while two million left heir homes during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia, a former Yugoslav republic that currently has a population of 3.8 million. The Bosnian war crimes court was set up in 2005 to ease the caseload of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.