The UN Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Friday upheld life-long prison sentences imposed five years ago on the two Bosnian Serbs for genocide at Srebrenica in July 1995.

Presiding judge Patrick Robinson said the tribunal's appeals chamber "affirms the life sentence" against Popovic, 57, and Ljubisa Beara, 75 (also pictured left above),

Life-long jail for Vujadin Popovic

A conviction for genocide is the most serious offense in the war crimes statute.

The pair had been sentenced in 2010 to life imprisonment on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.

Popovic and Beara were high-ranking security officers with the Bosnian Serb army commanded by General Ratko Mladic that overran Muslim forces in the UN-declared enclave. Dutch UN peacekeepers surrendered.

Bosnian Serb forces subsequently murdered some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Europe's worst massacre since World War II.

Sentences also upheld against three others

During Friday's proceedings, the tribunal also upheld verdicts for crimes against humanity for former Bosnian Serb army security chief Drago Nikolic and brigade commander Vinko Pandurevic, who were sentenced to 35 and 13 years, respectively.

It reduced the sentence of former operations chief Radivoje Miletic from 19 to 18 years.

The rulings reached unanimously or by majority by the appeals panel dismissed most of the appellants' challenges.

The ICTY's largest completed case to date opened in The Hague in 2006 and saw some 315 witnesses testify.

Mladic and Karadzic remain on trial

Since its inception, the tribunal has charged 19 people over the massacre - seven were sentenced to long jail terms in June 2010, including Popovic and Beara for genocide.

One of the seven did not appeal and the other has since died.

Srebrenica was Europe's largest massacre since WWII

Mladic and the former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic remain on trial at the ICTY in The Hague on genocide charges.

The ICTY has concluded 141 proceedings, while 15 others are still ongoing before the court.

In 2009, the European Parliament declared July 11 to be a day of remembrance for victims of the Srebrenica massacre.

ipj/gb(dpa, AFP)