A UN appeals court today quashed the sentences of three Bosnian Croats convicted by the UN war crimes tribunal of taking part in an ethnic purge in a central Bosnian village over eight years ago.
Zoran, Mirjan and Vlatko Kupreskic were found not guilty of crimes against humanity for the killings of over 100 Muslims by five judges in the UN tribunal's appeals chamber. They were to be released immediately from detention in The Hague.
Two other Bosnian Croats had their sentences reduced by the court. Drago Josipovic had his sentence cut from 15 to 12 years in prison, and Vladimir Santic had his sentence cut from 25 to 18 years.
Crucial identification evidence from a key witness, who was in her early teens at the time of the attack, had become questionable during the appeal by the three members of the Kupreskic family, said presiding judge Ms Patricia Wald.
All the men had been convicted for crimes related to the April 16th, 1993, massacre of more than 100 Muslim civilians in the village of Ahmici, marking the start of the Croat-Muslim war in Bosnia.