Croatia Convicts Serbian 'Scorpions' Paramilitary

The Croatian supreme court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of former Serbian paramilitary unit member Momic, giving him 15 years in prison for involvement in war crimes.

Momic, 51, was found guilty of participating in the execution of six Bosniak prisoners from Srebrenica in mid-July 1995 in the village of Godinjska Bara, near Trnovo.

One of the prisoners who was killed was aged 16 and two others were 17.

According to the verdict, Momic followed the orders of his commander Slobodan Medic and took part in shooting unarmed prisoners.

Along with others, Momic participated in trying to hide the evidence of the crime, by burning the bodies.

One of the biggest pieces of evidence brought before the court was a notorious video of the killings made by members of the unit themselves.

The Croatian authorities took over the case from the Serbian prosecution in July 2012 and arrested Momic in September 2014.

Besides the crimes in Trnovo, the Croatian authorities indicted Momic in 2006 for crimes committed in the village of Berak in eastern Croatia in 1991.

According to the indictment, Momic committed war crimes against Croat civilians, killing one and physically abusing four others, along with other Serbian paramilitiaries.

While he was on the run, Croatia issued an international arrest warrant. French police arrested him in January 2011 and extradited him to Croatia in September 2011.

The county court in the eastern town of Vukovar convicted him of the Berak crimes sentence in December 2013, sentencing him to three years for beating one civilian, but acquitting him on the other counts.

The supreme court quashed the verdict in March 2014 and the case is still ongoing.