Bosnian Serb general convicted for siege of Sarajevo

Dragomir Milosevic convicted of orchestrating months of deadly shelling and sniping of civilians during the notorious siege of Sarajevo.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Dragomir Milosevic 224.8 (photo credit: AP)
Dragomir Milosevic 224.8
(photo credit: AP)
A former Bosnian Serb general was convicted Wednesday of orchestrating months of deadly shelling and sniping of civilians during the notorious siege of Sarajevo and sentenced to 33 years imprisonment. Troops commanded by Gen. Dragomir Milosevic killed Sarajevo residents as young as 2 and as old as 80 in 1994 and 1995 with a lethal hail of snipers' bullets and mortar shells. "There was no safe place in Sarajevo," said Yugoslav war crimes tribunal Presiding Judge Patrick Robinson, reading from the judgment. "One could be killed and injured anywhere and any time." The "evidence discloses a horrific tale of encirclement and entrapment of a city ... and its bombardment" by Bosnian Serb forces of the Sarajevo Romanija Corps or SRK under Milosevic's command, said Robinson. The 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, which Milosevic oversaw for 15 months, was one of the longest and darkest chapters of the Balkan wars that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia, and was partly played out before an international audience on television. Milosevic, 65, showed no emotion as he stood listening to the verdict and sentence. He was convicted of five charges, including leading a campaign of terror, murder and inhumane acts. Milosevic, who commanded 18,000 Bosnian Serb troops who besieged Sarajevo between August 1994 and November 1995, had denied all charges, arguing that the Bosnian capital was a battle ground during the siege and his troops were carrying out legitimate military operations. Dragomir Milosevic is no relation to the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 before his genocide trial could be completed.