Judges reverse Serb's conviction

U.N. appeals judges on Wednesday overturned a conviction for complicity in genocide against a Bosnian Serb army colonel whose troops were involved in the 1995 slaughter of more than 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica.

Col. Vidoje Blagojevic, 56, was the wartime commander of the Bratunac brigade that took part in the worst post-World War II massacre in Europe by helping separate Muslim men from women and herding them into buses before the men were driven away and later murdered.

Blagojevic was convicted in January 2005 of war crimes and complicity in genocide and remains in jail, though his sentence was reduced from 18 to 15 years.

A five-judge appeals panel at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal said Blagojevic should have been acquitted on the genocide charge because the original trial judges ruled that he did not know of the mass murders and only provided logistical support. That meant he did not share in the intent to commit genocide, said presiding appeals judge Fausto Pocar.

"On the basis of the foregoing, the appeals chamber ... reverses his conviction for complicity in genocide," said Pocar.

The appeals judges upheld Blagojevic's other convictions for aiding and abetting murder, persecutions on political and racial grounds and inhumane acts.

They also upheld the murder, extermination and persecution on racial grounds convictions of Dragan Jokic, 49, a major in the Bosnian Serb army's Zvornik brigade, and left his nine-year sentence unchanged.

The two men's trial exposed the grim mechanics of genocide _ Blagojevic's troops helped separate the men and women and loaded them onto on buses after Bosnian Serb troops and paramilitaries overran the eastern Bosnian enclave. Jokic organized machinery and troops to dig mass graves for some of the more than 8,000 Muslim men massacred.

In 2005, prosecutors had sought 15-20 years in prison for Jokic and 32 years for Blagojevic. Some observers criticized the original sentences as too light.

Both men were acquitted of allegations of command responsibility. The court said the men had merely passed on orders, rather than given them.

The alleged architects of the massacre, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic, both are on the run, more than a decade after being indicted for genocide.