Predrag Bastah, who was serving a prison sentence for crimes committed in Vlasenica at the Vojkovici prison, has died at the University Clinical Centre in Banja Luka.
This information was confirmed by the director of the state prison in Vojkovici, Sinisa Perkovic. Bastah had been in the hospital in recent days due to heart problems.
By a verdict of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), he was sentenced to a single prison term of 35 years for crimes committed in Vlasenica.
In the first-instance proceedings, Bastah was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of 34 persons committed in 1992 at the Mracni Dol site near Vlasenica.
The indictment charged him with the murder of 37 persons, but the Trial Chamber dismissed part of the charges relating to three persons who had been covered by an earlier final verdict, by which he had been sentenced to 22 years in prison for crimes in Vlasenica.
“The accused, Predrag Bastah, was found guilty of having, in the period from April 21st 1992 until the end of September 1992, within the framework of a widespread and systematic attack by the military, paramilitary and police forces of the Serb Republic of BiH, directed against the civilian Bosniak and other non-Serb population of the municipality of Vlasenica, knowing of such an attack and that his actions constituted part of that attack, as a member of the reserve composition of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska (RS), SJB Vlasenica, carried out persecution of the civilian population of Bosniak nationality on political, national and religious grounds, participating in a joint plan and contributing to the achievement of the common objective of depriving other persons of life (through killings),” the verdict of the Court of BiH states, Klix.ba writes.
