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A Bosnian appeals court said Friday it sentenced an ethnic Serb to prison for denying the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, marking the first such ruling in the country.
The appeals chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found Vojin Pavlovic guilty of "inciting national, racial, and religious hatred and intolerance," the court said in a statement.
Pavlovic, 49, who leads the nationalist, pro-Russian group Eastern Alternative, was initially sentenced in May to two years and six months in prison.
Following appeals by both Pavlovic and prosecutors, the appeals chamber increased his sentence to three years and six months. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed.
Nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 during the closing stages of Bosnia's 1992–1995 interethnic war.
The atrocity has been ruled a genocide by both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice.
Serbian and Bosnian Serb leaders, however, continue to deny that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide.
In March 2023, Pavlovic displayed a banner in Bratunac, a town near Srebrenica, featuring the image of Bosnian Serb wartime military commander and convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic. The caption read: "Happy birthday, may you live long and in good health."
A United Nations tribunal sentenced Mladic in 2017 to life imprisonment for genocide and war crimes, including his role in the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica genocide.
Pavlovic was also found guilty of "approving and attempting to justify the genocide in Srebrenica" by organizing a public gathering in Bratunac on July 11, 2023, the anniversary of the genocide.
For the event, he placed posters around town with the message: "July 11, Day of Liberation of Srebrenica. Thank you, Army of the Republika Srpska."
Bosnia has been divided into two entities since the war: the Serb-led Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat federation.
The criminal offense of genocide denial was introduced in 2021 by the top international envoy to Bosnia, Austria’s Valentin Inzko.
He amended the country’s penal code to criminalize the denial of genocide and other war crimes, as well as the glorification of war criminals, with penalties of up to five years in prison.
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