This article is also available in: Shqip Macedonian Bos/Hrv/Srp

Sasa Savinovic (right) outside the court. Photo: BIRN.

The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Thursday upheld the first-instance verdict convicting Sasa Savinovic of committing crimes against humanity as a member of a Croatian Defence Council anti-terrorist group, and jailed him for eight years.

Savinovic was found guilty of taking part in the persecution of Bosniaks from Mostar from May 1993 until the end of the year, including involvement in murders and forcible resettlement.

The verdict said that on July 15, 1993, Savinovic, accompanied by three other Croatian Defence Council fighters, barged into an apartment in Mostar in which there were three women and a baby, and took them out.

One of them managed to save herself, while the bodies of the others, including the baby, were found around half an hour later, the verdict said.

The verdict also said that Savinovic also barged into another apartment where two women and their mother lived.

He forced them out of the apartment and escorted them to the dividing line between Croatian Defence Council and Bosnian Army forces in Mostar.

While shooting in the air, he and other Croatian Defence Council fighters forced them to flee to the eastern part of the city, which was under the control of the Bosnian Army, the verdict said.

The verdict is final and cannot be appealed.