Former commander of the Drina Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), Radislav Krstić, has been transferred from the United Nations (UN) Detention Unit to Estonia to serve the remainder of his prison sentence for aiding and abetting the genocide in Srebrenica. The order, which removed the confidential status of Krstić after his transfer to Estonia and made public, states that the Mechanism has decided that he will serve the remainder of his sentence in that country.
Krstić was sentenced to 35 years in prison by the Hague Tribunal in 2004 for aiding and abetting the genocide in Srebrenica. At the end of that year, he was sent to England to serve his sentence, but was attacked in prison there, after which he was returned to The Hague, and then sent to serve the remainder of his sentence in Poland, from where he was returned to the Detention Unit in The Hague.
The Detektor previously reported that the Mechanism had again rejected Krstić’s request for early release. In her decision, the Mechanism’s President, Judge Graciela Gatti Santana, stated that the gravity of Krstić’s crimes should be considered a factor in denying him early release, and that the demonstration of rehabilitation should be more convincing the more serious the criminal conduct involved.
“I welcome the fact that Krstić has made positive progress and I believe that his public admission that genocide occurred in Srebrenica, and that he participated in it, reflects a level of rehabilitation and is significant given the rise in historical revisionism and genocide denial in the region,” Gatti Santana explained at the time.
She added in her decision that she was not yet convinced that Krstić had demonstrated a sufficient degree of rehabilitation to reach the “elevated threshold,” and that there was no evidence to suggest that there were compelling humanitarian reasons that could override the negative assessment.
“So far, Krstic has requested early release on several occasions, which the Mechanism has rejected each time,” the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH) said.
