War criminal Radoslav Brđanin's request for early release denied

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts Carmel Agius denied early release to Radoslav Brđanin, former political leader of the "Autonomous Region of Krajina" (ARK) sentenced to 30 years in prison for crimes against humanity.

In his decision, Agius stated that he "does not consider it appropriate to use his discretionary power and grant Brđanin early release at this stage".

"Specifically, the great gravity of his crimes is an obstacle to his early release. Furthermore (...) Brđanin has not shown that he has been successfully rehabilitated," Agius stated in his decision.

Brđanin, the former political leader of the "Autonomous Region of Krajina," which was under Serbian control, was definitively found guilty in 2007 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for crimes including persecution, torture, deportations, and forcible transfer committed against the non-Serb population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly in ARK during 1992.

He was arrested in BiH in 1999.

Brđanin has been in prison in Denmark since March 2008. Brđanin sent his request for early release in January 2019, stating that he planned to return to live in Banja Luka after serving two-thirds of his sentence.