Serb’s war crime sentence reduced

The U.N. war crimes tribunal quashed the conviction of a former Bosnian Serb army commander for complicity in genocide in the Srebrenica massacre, but said he still had to serve 15 years for related crimes.

Col. Vidoje Blagojevic had helped with the transfer of Bosnian Muslims from the U.N.’s so-called safe area of Srebrenica in 1995. As many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered there by Serb forces.

But judges said it was not proved beyond reasonable doubt that Blagojevic knew of others’ genocidal intent. They reduced his sentence from 18 years to 15.