Kvocka

Miroslav Kvocka, Mladjo Radic, Zoran Zigic and Dragoljub Prcac were in November 2001 found to have facilitated what the trial chamber’s presiding judge Almiro Rodrigues described as a “hellish orgy of persecution” at the facility, where non-Serb detainees were beaten, starved, raped and murdered.

Omarska was set up following the capture of the town of Prijedor by ethnic Serb forces and was intended to hold those suspected of sympathising with the local resistance. During the three months the camp existed, more than 3,300 men and women are thought to have passed through its gates.

The four appealed their convictions on a range of grounds, including claims that judges were mistaken about the roles they played at the prison, that legal procedure hadn’t been followed properly during the trial and that their sentences were excessively harsh.

But at the February 28 hearing, appeals chamber presiding judge Mohamed Shahabuddeen said the few successful arguments that Kvocka and Zigic had made against specific elements of their convictions were too insignificant to affect sentencing. All other grounds for appeal were dismissed.

The longest sentence, 25 years, was given to Zigic, who was also found guilty of crimes in two other nearby camps, Keraterm and Trnopolje. During the original 2001 sentencing, judge Rodrigues said Zigic “enjoyed pushing the detainees to the limits of their ability to endure suffering”, including making them drink their own blood.

Radic, who received a twenty year sentence, had a reputation as the most violent of the commanders at the Omarska camp and was found to have raped a number of female prisoners.

Prcac and Kvocka were not convicted of personally abusing Omarska inmates, but the two received sentences of five and seven years respectively for the roles they played there.

Prcac completed his full sentence on March 4, four days after the appeals judgement was read out, and has now also been released from custody.

A fifth man sentenced to six years in the same case, Milojica Kos, withdrew his initial appeal and was released in July 2002 after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

Another hearing was held this week to discuss what to do with the case of Zeljko Mejakic, said to have been in command of Omarska, and three others accused of acting as guards. Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor, has requested that the indictment against them be referred to the new specialist war crimes chamber in Sarajevo.

Michael Farquhar is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.