A former senior Bosnian Serb military officer has had his life sentence for genocide upheld at an international war crimes court last week.
Zdravko Tolimir, head of Bosnian Serb military intelligence, had most of his 26 grounds for appeal dismissed by Judge Theodor Meron, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Though Mr Tolimir had convictions relating to the forcible transfer of Muslims from Žepa, a town near Srebrenica and other smaller scale massacres dropped, others relating to his role in the killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica were upheld. The sentence remained unchanged.
“In light of these genocide convictions alone, the appeals chamber considers that Tolimir’s responsibility does not warrant a revision of his sentence,” said Mr Meron.
“The accused had knowledge and was aware of the genocidal intent of the Bosnian Serb leadership and was responsible for genocide.”
Mr Meron went on to state that Mr Tolimir was Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic’s “right hand man”, adding that he “sometimes knew more than Mladic himself”.