Momčilo Krajišnik, a former Bosnian Serb leader convicted of crimes against humanity, has died in Bosnia after being infected with the new coronavirus.
Bana Luka Hospital informed that 75-year-old Krajishnik died on Tuesday morning.
Krajishnik, once a close associate of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, was sentenced by the UN tribunal in 2006 to 20 years in prison for persecuting and forcibly displacing other ethnic groups, as well as for other crimes against humanity committed during the Bosnian war.
In 2013, Krajishnik was released early.
During the Bosnian war, he was the speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament and was actively involved in efforts to establish a separate Serb state on Bosnian territory and unite it with Serbia.
During the war, Bosnian Serb forces took control of about a third of Bosnia’s territory, expelling Muslims and Croats and killing thousands.
More than 100,000 people lost their lives in the war.
Despite the rulings of the UN tribunal, many Serbs consider Krajišnik and other wartime Bosnian Serb leaders to be heroes.
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