A former Serb paramilitary, Dragan Birac, was sentenced pending appeal by the Zagreb County Court on Monday to 12 years imprisonment for war crimes committed in September 1991 in the town of Hrvatska Kostajnica, about 150 kilometres southeast of Zagreb.

Birac, who was tried in absentia, was sentenced to eight years in prison for the murder of two civilians, Andjelka Biscan and Jagoda Brkljacic, and another seven years for the murder of a Croatian military POW, Mladen Biscan. The sentence was then combined to 12 years.

In his reasoning, Judge Drazen Kevric said that testimonies by witnesses without a doubt determined that Birac shot the married couple Biscan and Andjelka Biscan’s mother Jagoda Brkljacic. The key witness to this war crime was the couple’s son Danijel who saw the defendant shoot them.

The prosecution accused Birac of having violated international humanitarian law when he shot and killed the three victims after they had surrendered and exited their home unarmed with their hands in the air.