Bosnia Convicts Serb Ex-Soldier of Killing Bosniak Family

The Bosnian state court found Sretko Pavic guilty on Monday of having participated in the murder of five civilians in the village of Rizvanovici in the Prijedor area in the second half of July 1992, and sentenced him to 13 years in prison.

The verdict said that the civilians, all members of the Causevic family, were found in a forest and then detained in a building next to a checkpoint in Rizvanovici.

A day after they were detained there, Pavic and another Bosnian Serb soldier called Pero Stevandic took them out and killed them in the vicinity of a nearby school building. Stevandic has since died.

Presiding Minka Kreho recalled testimony given by a witness who saw the defendant and Stevandic take away the civilians and then heard a burst of gunfire.

"The defence witnesses, including the defendant, did not cast doubt on evidence concerning Pavic's participation in the murders," Kreho said.

The court also determined that Pavic, as a member of the Volarska Company with the Sixth Ljubija Battalion of the Bosnian Serb Army, was aware of a widespread and systematic attack against the non-Serb population in the area at the time.

This is a first-instance verdict and can be appealed.