Croatia's Supreme Court announced on Friday it decided to reduce the 15-year prison sentence to 13.5 years for Dragan Vasiljkovic, a.k.a. Captain Dragan, wartime commander of a Serb paramilitary unit, for war crimes committed against Croatian soldiers and civilians during the 1991-95 war of independence.

The final verdict, delivered on 12 June and published on the Supreme Court’s website on Friday, partly sustained objections made by the defendant. He was given seven years for each of the first two counts of the indictment, and the sentence was converted into a single sentence of 13 years and six months.

The Supreme Court upheld the remainder of the verdict handed down by Split County Court in September 2016 which found Vasiljkovic guilty of war crimes committed in the city of Knin in June and July 1991, and during an attack on the town of Glina. However, in its ruling it acquitted him on charges of ordering the murder of two unidentified Croatian soldiers near the town of Benkovac in February 1993.

Captain Dragan, who was born in Belgrade and has citizenship of Australia, which extradited him to Croatia in July 2015, was charged with violating the Geneva Conventions by torturing and killing Croatian prisoners of war.

He was also found guilty of planning, in July 1991, and in agreement with the commander of a Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) tank unit, an attack on the police station in the town of Glina, and the occupation of the town that ensued.

During the attack, civilian properties were damaged or destroyed, the local population was forced to flee their homes, their properties were plundered, and civilians were killed and wounded, including a foreign reporter.

Vasiljkovic has denied all the allegations.

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