UN War Crimes Court Confirms Croatian Serb Leader's Sentence

18 July 2005 -- The UN war crimes tribunal today confirmed the 13-year sentence for former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic.
Babic pleaded guilty in 2004 to crimes against humanity but sought to have his sentence reduced on appeal.

Babic, a one-time ally of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, was the mayor of the central Croatian town of Knin, a separatist Serb stronghold during the 1991-95 war in Croatia.

In the first two years of the war he was president of the self-proclaimed Serb republic of Krajina (RSK) when hundreds of Croats and other non-Serbs, including women and pensioners, were massacred in the Serb-held territory.

(AFP)