Vehid Sehic

"He deserved nothing less than life imprisonment," said Nura Alispahic from Srebrenica, whose two sons were killed.

The verdict was also welcomed by Bosniak politicians - but political leaders in the country's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity said it proved that the UN court was anti-Serb.

Experts who spoke to BIRN BiH say the rules must urgently be harmonised and the law updated to reflect the new challenges.

"This could be disastrous because many of them [migrants] do lack personal identification documents," said Vehid Sehic, a former judge and lawyer in Bosnia.

Political observers and ethnic Croat parties in Bosnia have criticised the fact that the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the de facto state government, Denis Zvizdic, is to take over as speaker of the House of Representatives in the state parliament as well.

Vasvija Vidovic, a lawyer who has represented former Bosnian Army soldiers at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Bosnian state court, argued that defendants find themselves difficult financial situations because trials are long-running and very expensive.