CIVILIANS SUBJECTED TO TORTURE, ONLY EIGHT PERPETRATORS SENTENCED TO 48 YEARS IN PRISON

TARČIN, JANUARY 27 /SRNA/ – President of the Association of Camp Inmates of Republika Srpska Anđelko Nosović stated today that Serb civilians, not soldiers, were detained in the Silos camp in Tarčin, and that for all crimes committed against them only eight perpetrators were sentenced, receiving a total of just 48 years in prison.

"Soldiers were not imprisoned here, nor combatants captured in battle, but civilians who lived in this area, whose only `crime` was that they were Serbs," Nosović told reporters. He asked what guilt could be attributed to a 14-year-old boy Leo Kapetanović, or to an 85-year-old elderly man. "What guilt did the women have who were imprisoned here, 11 of them, including pregnant women who were raped? Among those criminals was the then wartime mayor of Hadžići, who was later sentenced to 10 years in prison, but did not serve his sentence in full, as he died," Nosović said. Adding to the irony, Nosović noted that Bosniaks declared the day of the Hadžići mayor’s funeral a day of mourning and that he was buried with the highest honors. Referring to the sentences handed down for crimes committed in the “Silos” camp, Nosović pointed out that a man who displayed photographs of Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić was sentenced to as many as three years in prison. "Then compare that and see the disproportionality of the sentences for the killing of 24 people murdered in this camp. Not to mention the number of people who died after being released from the camp. It is difficult to speak of any humane or just approach when we see what is happening to Serbs in the FBiH today," Nosović said. He stressed that former camp inmates and representatives of institutions of Republika Srpska did not gather today in front of the notorious Silos camp to provoke anyone, but to remind the public of the perpetrators who committed unimaginable crimes against Serbs in this concentration camp, which was closed 30 years ago.