Serbia Convicts Bosnian Serb Ex-Policeman of Torturing Prisoners

Belgrade Higher Court found Milorad Jovanovic guilty on Tuesday of torturing non-Serb civilian prisoners who were being detained at the Simo Miljus Memorial Museum in Lusci Palanka in the Sanski Most area of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the summer of 1992, and sentenced him to nine years in jail.

"The fact that [Jovanovic] kicked the injured parties and beat them with his fists and baton was primarily established by the court from the testimonies of the witnesses, all of whom consistently described the blows they received, how they turned black and blue, and how they fainted," said judge Vinka Beraha Nikicevic.

Beraha Nikicevic said the court took into account as aggravating circumstances "the gravity and consequences of the crime and the display of ruthlessness towards the victims, who did not contribute in any way towards the way they were treated".

She said that the mitigating circumstances were that Jovanovic was young at the time that the crime was committed, that he had no previous convictions and that he has a family.

According to the indictment, Bosnian Serb reservist policeman Jovanovic, together with his commander Slavko Vukovic, who has since died, and other unnamed police officers, forcibly brought non-Serbs from villages near Sanski Most in June and July 1992 and imprisoned them in the museum in Lusci Palanka.

In order to get evidence about the possession of weapons or information about a group allegedly resisting Serb troops, Jovanovic hit prisoners with his fists, a shotgun and other objects, kicked them, tied them to a chair or a beam on the ceiling and beat them.

He also forced one of the prisoners, Dedo Dervisevic, to be baptised as Orthodox, and made him crawl on the floor and kiss his boots.