The UN war crimes court yesterday convicted three former Bosnian Serb commanders in a landmark prosecution of rape and sexual enslavement as crimes against humanity.
The three received sentences ranging from 12 to 28 years for raping, enslaving and torturing Muslim women and girls in 1992. The case was the first before the Yugoslavia tribunal to deal with rape alone and to treat it as a crime against humanity, a charge second only to genocide in severity.
"Rape was used by members of the Bosnian Serb armed forces as an instrument of terror", Presiding Judge Florence Mumba said as she delivered the verdict after an eight-month trial.
"The three accused are not ordinary soldiers whose morals were merely loosened by the hardships of war . . . they thrived in the dark atmosphere of the dehumanisation of those believed to be enemies," she said.
Prosecutors said the three took women and girls as young as 12 to a variety of "rape houses" for a string of brutal beatings and assaults. The crimes took place in the summer of 1992 after Bosnian Serb forces overran the town of Foca in south-east Bosnia.
The trial chamber sentenced Dragoljub Kunarac (40) to 28 years in jail, Radomir Kovac (39) to 20 years and Zoran Vukovic (39) to 12 years.
The three, leaders of Bosnian Serb forces during the overthrow and occupation of Foca, were charged with 36 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war, including 10 rapes.
The strong stance on wartime rape at the Hague-based court contrasts with that of the tribunals set up in Nuremberg and Tokyo after the second World War and the reluctance of the Japanese government to recognise the existence of socalled "comfort women" who served their soldiers.
Yesterday's judgment, in the ninth trial to be completed since proceedings began in 1996, is expected to be closely studied by women's groups.
Prosecutors said they were gratified by the convictions and sentences and pleased that the court had seen the systematic abuse as part of a general attack against the mainly Muslim population.
The people were separated, with the men detained in a local prison, and the women in a sports hall and various hotels and houses which served as brothels for the invading troops.
Many women were so forcibly abused they suffered permanent gynaecological harm. One woman, identified as witness 75, was raped for three hours by 15 men.
Two teenage girls were held for months by Kovac as personal sex slaves before being sold.
Kunarac and Kovac, who received the longest sentences, kept young women and girls at the quarters as domestic servants and sex slaves. Kunarac organised the transfer of women to other soldiers, while Kovac raped, beat and subsequently sold his charges, including a 12year old girl.
"You have shown the most glaring disrespect for the women's dignity and their fundamental human rights . . . on a scale that far surpasses even what one might call . . . the `average seriousness of rapes during wartime'," Judge Mumba told Kunarac.
Former Gen Mirko Norac appeared in a Croatian court yesterday, denying allegations that he was involved in the 1991 slaughter of Serb civilians. He told Investigative Judge Sajonara Culina at the Rijeka county court that he had no knowledge of the incidents being investigated. Gen Norac is the highest-ranking Croatian officer to be suspected of war crimes.