A former commander in the Bosnian Serb Army has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for complicity in the kidnapping and murder of 20 civilians who were taken off a train and later tortured and killed during the 1992-95 Bosnian War.
The Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina ruled on January 19 that Boban Indjic participated in the killings and sentenced him, ending a trial that started in 2015 for a war crime committed 30 years ago. His detention was extended after the first-instance verdict, which can be appealed.
The court found Indjic was part of a group of Bosnian Serb soldiers and paramilitaries that ambushed the train and abducted the 20 passengers in February 1993.
Indjic was initially charged with eight other members of the same military unit, but the trials were separated because Indjic was convicted in Serbia of causing a traffic accident. After serving his sentence for that crime his trial continued before the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
A Bosnian state court convicted Indjic's seven comrades in October 2022 and sentenced each to 13 years in prison.
Obrad Poluga, Novak Poluga, Radojica Ristich, Petko Indjic, Miodrag Mitashinovich, Dragan Shekovich, and Oliver Krsmanovich were found guilty of complicity in the war crime.
Mitashinovich escaped before sentencing and is still at large.
The court acquitted their commander, Luka Dragichevich. The judge said the prosecutor did not prove Dragichevich ordered Indjic to torture and kill civilians.
The incident started at the Strpci train station near the border with Serbia on February 27, 1993. Armed Serbs stopped a train there and took off 20 passengers, mostly Muslims.
The Serbian paramilitary soldiers brought the men to Visegrad in eastern Bosnia, where they tortured and killed all of them, dumping their bodies in the Drina River. The oldest victim was 59, and the youngest was 16.
All the victims were from the Muslim-dominated Sandzak area in southern Serbia, which borders Bosnia. The remains of only four victims have been found.