Three former members of the Bosnian Serb Army have been sentenced to prison for committing multiple rapes more than 30 years ago during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Ostoja Markovic, 57, received the longest sentence -- nine years -- from the district court in Banja Luka on February 10.
The other two defendants, Bosiljko Markovic, also 57, and Mirko Bozic, age unknown, were sentenced to seven years each for the crimes they committed in 1992 in the town of Kotor Varos in central Bosnia.
Zoran Bubic, a lawyer representing Ostoja Markovic, confirmed the sentences to RFE/RL. Bubic said an appeal will be filed against the first-instance decision.
According to the indictment, the three men, while serving in the Bosnian Serb Army, raped multiple women of Croatian nationality in Kotor Varos on June 28, 1992.
The men were charged with the criminal offense of war crimes against the civilian population, according to the indictment filed in November 1993. The Military Prosecutor’s Office initially pressed charges against the men during the war. Their trial in civilian court in Banja Luka began in April.
Ostoja and Bosiljko Markovic, who are not related, currently are serving a previous sentence for raping a 14-year-old girl during the war. They were sentenced to 10 years in a decision handed down in 2015 by the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The verdict was the first in the history of criminal proceedings in Bosnia in which a victim of a war crime was awarded compensation. The convicted men were ordered to pay her compensation amounting to about 13,600 euros ($14,500). An appellate court upheld the verdict and subsequently changed the sentence for Ostoja Markovic to 11 years and eight months.
The town of Kotor Varos had a population of about 17,000, including 12,000 Serbs, according to the census in 2013. Before the war, the town had a population of 36,000, and 39 percent were Bosniak.