A UN war crimes court has sentenced two Bosnian Serbs to life in jail for genocide over their role in the Srebrenica massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995.
Vujadin Popovic, 53, and Ljubisa Beara, 70, were both officers in the Bosnian Serb army blamed for the massacre during the 1992-95 war that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Four other military officers and a police official found guilty of related offences were jailed for between five and 35 years.
The "only appropriate sentence... is life imprisonment," judge Carmel Agius told Popovic and Beara at the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Beara was described by the court as the "driving force behind the murder enterprise," while Popovic's "robust participation" in the massacre demonstrated "he not only knew of this intent to destroy, he also shared it."
The prosecution had requested life imprisonment on September 2009 against all the accused for their role in the worst massacre in Europe since World War Two.
Beara, who had the rank of colonel, had been security chief in the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) and Popovic, a lieutenant-colonel, was security chief of the VRS's Drina Corps.
SURVIVORS WELCOME JAIL TERMS
Survivors of the Srebrenica massacre said the life sentences handed down by the UN court were crucial for Bosnia's future.
"We are satisfied that they have been jailed for life for genocide," Zumra Sehomerovic of the Mothers of Srebrenica, an association of massacre survivors, told AFP.
She said the ruling was essential to survivors of the massacre because, "in Bosnia the Srebrenica genocide has been denied."
Many Bosnian Serbs including leading politicians have sought to minimise the killing of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys, after Bosnian Serb forces overran the eastern town on July 11, 1995, and deny that it constituted a genocide.
"The crimes committed in Srebrenica have to be punished for (Bosnia's) future and co-existence," between its ethnic communities, Sehomerovic added.
The two genocide sentences prove that the massacre was systematically organised, the head of an association of Bosnia's wartime detainees was quoted as saying by FENA news agency.
"This once again confirms that a genocide has really occurred in Srebrenica, the worst crime on European soil since World War II," Murat Tahirovic said.
But victims' relatives complained that the sentences were too mild for the five other defendants in the case.
The four military officers and a police official, found guilty of related offences, received jail terms of between five and 35 years.
"We cannot be satisfied completely since justice has been only partially served," said Hajra Catic, the head of the Women of Srebrenica association.
"We feel a bit bitter because of these rulings since we know that they (the convicts) took part in the crime," Catic, who lost her husband and three sons in the massacre, told AFP.
Sehomerovic's husband was also among those killed and his remains were laid to rest last year after being recovered from several mass graves.
So far more than 6,400 victims exhumed from various mass graves around the town have been identified by DNA analysis.
Meanwhile, Bosnian Serbs slammed the verdicts, accusing the International Criminal tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of bias against ethnic Serbs.
"It's shameful! Why are the crimes committed by Muslims are not being punished?" Sreten, a 24-year-old student from the northern town of Banja Luka, told AFP.
"I don't understand why Srebrenica is being underlined as if other war crimes did not happen," said 67-year-old pensioner Ivana.