THE HAGUE, 6 December 2003 — A Bosnian Serb general was convicted yesterday of commanding a deliberate two-year campaign of terror against the civilians of Sarajevo, raining sniper fire and shells on the Muslim sector of the city that killed hundreds of people and wounded thousands. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
By a two-to-one decision, the UN war crimes tribunal said Gen. Stanislav Galic, 60, ordered his troops to fire on civilians while they were shopping, tending gardens, fetching water from the river or going about their daily lives.
It was the first decision at the UN court for the former Yugoslavia dealing exclusively with the siege of Sarajevo during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war that brought the world images of “Sniper Alley” and corpses of children killed by shells while playing in the snow. Presiding judge Alphons Orie said the attacks had “the primary purpose of spreading terror.”
It was also the first time the court dealt with the charge of terror, as defined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The judges ruled that “the international tribunal does indeed have jurisdiction over the crime of attack on civilians” and the crime of terror, which has an “additional mental element.”
Galic was convicted of five counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes during the period he commanded the siege from 1992 to 1994, the tribunal ruled. The siege continued for another year after Galic left the Romanija Corps encircling the city.
Serb gunmen held positions in the hills which surround the city, cutting its residents off from food and medical supplies. They fired through windows into apartment buildings, and killed people while they cooked, ate, or even attended funerals.
Galic looked impassive as Justice Orie read out the 20-year sentence and guilty verdict.
In Sarajevo, Muslims said they were disappointed with the “inadequate” prison term. “If you have a 20-year sentence for the deaths of 16,000 people, it means Galic will only be in prison for a few hours for each of them,” said Jasmin Odobasic, deputy head of the Muslim Commission for Missing Persons.
“The sentence is far too mild compared to what he did to us,” said Sanda Pudaric, a 40-year-old woman severely wounded during the siege. Pudaric was pregnant when she was hit by shrapnel from Serb mortars as she went to work.
Her left leg was amputated but her baby survived. In all, nearly 12,000 people including 1,500 children died in the siege, according to the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.
