Former Bosnian Serb commander sentenced to 22 years for war crimes

AFP - A Bosnian court on Friday jailed a former Bosnian Serb commander for 22 years for the murder and sexual enslavement of Muslim civilians during the country's 1992-1995 war.

"Predrag Kujundzic committed and incited killings, coercing to sexual slavery, rape, severe deprivation of physical liberty, persecution of non-Serb civilian population and other inhuman acts," a court statement said.

The crimes took place in the northern town of Doboj in 1992, the statement from the Court of Bosnia-Hercegovina added.

Kujundzic, 48, whose unit called "Predo's wolves" was part of the Bosnian Serb army, was found guilty of crimes against humanity.

According to the verdict Kujundzic at one point took part in the maltreatment of 50 Muslim and Croat civilians. Seventeen of them were killed while they were used as a human shield in an attack against the mainly Muslim Bosnian army.

He also raped a Muslim underaged girl and kept her as a sexual slave for six months in 1992.

"He forced her once to read a statement at the Radio Doboj saying that Muslims were guilty of the war... and that she was inviting them to convert to Christianity," the court said.

Kujundzic also ordered the girl to wear a chain with a cross pendant around her neck and changed her Muslim name into a Serb name.

At the beginning of the war, Bosnian Serb troops captured two thirds of Bosnian territory, including southeastern part of the country, killing thousands and expelling almost all non-Serb civilians.

Local authorities are dealing with low-profile war crime cases, while the UN court in The Hague is tasked with those involving senior officials.

Bosnia's war claimed at least 100,000 lives, while some 2.2 million people, more than half of the population, fled their homes.