Bosnian Serb sentenced to 15 years for war crimes

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Serb policeman Dragan Zelenovic was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the U.N. war crimes tribunal on Wednesday, after he pleaded guilty to the rape and torture of Bosnian Muslims during the 1992-1995 war.

Zelenovic, a 46-year-old former paramilitary leader, was indicted in 1996 for atrocities committed against non-Serbs in his native Foca region, southeast of Sarajevo, including the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl.

The court found him guilty of personally committing nine rapes of women in Serb detention, eight of which qualified as both torture and rape, and four of which were gang rapes.

"The victims at the detention centres in Foca suffered the unspeakable pain, indignity, and humiliation of being repeatedly violated, without knowing whether they would survive the ordeal," Judge Alphons Orie said.

"The scars left by the sexual assaults were deep and will perhaps never heal. This, perhaps more than anything, speaks about the gravity of the crimes in this case."

Zelenovic's defence had recommended a sentence of 7 to 10 years, while prosecutors pushed for 10 to 15.

Last year, he pleaded "not guilty" to 14 counts of rape and torture, but under the terms of a plea bargain between his defence team and prosecutors he admitted to seven charges in January while the others were dropped.

After Serb forces took control of Foca, whose population at the time was 52 percent Muslim and 45 percent Serb, they unlawfully detained thousands of Muslims and Croats.

The non-Serb women were separated from the men and many were later interrogated and subjected to humiliating treatment, brutal beatings and sexual assaults.