The Hague War Crimes Tribunal has sentenced a former Bosnian Serb policeman to 17 years in jail for taking part in the 1992 massacre of more than 200 non-Serb men on the edge of Bosnian cliff.
Darko Mrdja confessed at the UN war crimes tribunal last year to taking part in shootings by a special Bosnian Serb police unit of at least 228 prisoners on Mount Vlasic in central Bosnia in August 1992.
The Bosnian Muslim and Croat victims, who had been told they would be released in a prisoner exchange, were driven from the notorious Trnopolje detention camp to woods by a ravine where they were forced to kneel to be shot by the edge of a cliff.
A dozen men survived the massacre by tumbling or jumping down the cliff.
The mass killing marked part of an early wave of ethnic cleansing in the 1992-95 Bosnian war as rebel Bosnian Serb forces clashed with Bosnian Croats and Muslims during the break-up of the multi-ethnic former Yugoslavia.
"The fact that Mrdja personally participated in the selection of the civilians that were going to be killed and in the subsequent murder and attempted murder of 12 of them... makes these crimes especially serious," Judge Alphons Orie told the court as he announced the sentence.
Prosecutors and the defence recommended a 15-20 year prison sentence to judges after a plea deal.
Mrdja initially pleaded not guilty to three counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes but changed his plea to guilty on two counts - murder and attempted murder - under the deal.