The Hague Tribunal Extends the Sentence Imposed on Radovan Karadzic for the Srebrenica Massacre to Life imprisonment

The Mechanism of the International Criminal Tribunals pronounced on Wednesday the condemnation of the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic a life imprisonment for his responsibility for crimes committed during the Bosnian war (1992-1995).

The chairman of the MTPI Court of Appeal, Vagn Prüsse Joensen, said that the trial sentence, of 40 years in prison, "did not adequately reflect the extraordinary gravity of Karadzic's responsibility in committing the crimes".

Karadzic is tried for his responsibility in the Sarajevo Headquarters and the The Srebrenica mbadacre in 1995, the worst in Europe since the Second World War. He is also accused of having displaced populations with ethnic criteria in several cities of the country.

Karadzic, former president of the Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska, was sentenced by the persecution, murder, rape, inhuman treatment or forcible transfer under the almost four-year siege of the Bosnian capitalor 10,000 people are dead and 2.2 million are homeless.

The decision of international justice on the chance of Karadzic, 73, is one of the last in the framework of the conflictual collapse of the former Yugoslavia after the fall of communism in 1991.

"This is a historic verdict for justice. If Karadzic does not get what he deserves, it will mean that there is no justice in this world and that it is possible to commit crimes without the risk of punishment, "said Munira Subasic, president of Las Madres Association of Srebrenica, she lost her husband and 16-year-old son.

Belgrade could reject the verdict, warned Izabela Kisic, executive director of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. "Serbia has long denied war crimes and its view of the war in Bosnia has not changedhe said, saying the situation "has even deteriorated considerably".

In Bosnia, the Republika Srpska government canceled a 2004 report on killings last year and created a new commission to investigate these crimes.

(With information from EFE and AFP)