THE HAGUE: Two of Bosnia's most notorious warlords were yesterday jailed for up to 20 years by the UN war crimes court following one of its longest trials.
Bosnian Croats Mladen Naletilic, nicknamed Tuta, and Vinko Martinovic, nicknamed Stela, were jailed for 20 and 18 years respectively for a reign of terror inflicted on Muslims of Bosnia's most beautiful city, Mostar.
The men made their name running a private army, named the Convicts Battalion, which indulged in a long list of crimes including murder, torture, robbery and ethnic cleansing in 1993.
After the war they switched to gangsterism, using their troops to terrorise both Muslims and Croats in southern Bosnia.
Irish judge Maureen Clark, speaking at their conviction for crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, told the court the two men had brought terror to a once peaceful community.
She outlined one particular horror, in which the Convicts Battalion forced Muslim prisoners to go into no-man's land carrying wooden guns - to be used as decoys to draw enemy fire.
Three of the men were shot and wounded, but all managed to stagger to their own lines - and were able later to give evidence against their former tormentors.
"While the word human shield was used in the indictment, decoy would be the most appropriate description," said Judge Clark. The trial was one of the longest in Hague history, taking 14 months and involving more than 130 witnesses. Prosecutors hope it will show that the prime movers in the Bosnia wars were gangsters rather than heroes.
The siege of Mostar's Muslims was one of the worst of the war.