The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina today sentenced Radovan Stankovic to 16 years' imprisonment for rapes and other crimes against humanity committed in the Bosnian town of Foca in 1992. Stankovic was the first ICTY indictee whose case was transferred to a national court as part of Tribunal's completion strategy, under the Rule 11 bis.

According to the indictment, Stankovic was in charge of Karaman's house, a house in Foca where Bosnian Muslim women and girls, some as young as 12 and 14 years of age, were detained so that Serb soldiers and other Serb men could sexually assault them. Stankovic and others treated the women and girls as their personal property. During the entire period of their detention the girls and women were subjected to repeated rapes and sexual assaults. Stankovic repeatedly raped, assaulted and threatened two victims and threatened to rape others.

Today's judgement justifies the Tribunal's strategy of transferring cases, expertise and know-how to the judiciaries in the region, and particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Tribunal is dedicated to assisting local courts in conducting war crimes trials in accordance with international standards of fair trial and remains committed to supporting fair trials for the perpetrators of atrocities committed during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. The ICTY hopes the judiciary of Bosnia and Herzegovina can complement the work of the Tribunal in providing justice and trying perpetrators that will not be tried in The Hague.

To date the ICTY has transferred eleven indictees to local courts pursuant to a Rule11bis ruling. The number of cases referred under Rule 11bis is comparatively small in comparison to the number of cases tried before the Tribunal. Out of 161 persons indicted by the Tribunal, proceedings against 97 of them have been completed.

The work of the Tribunal is still on-going with 23 indictees currently on trial, facing charges for crimes allegedly committed across former Yugoslavia. At the same time, indictees already in ICTY custody or awaiting trial include Ramush Haradinaj, war-time commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army and former Prime Minister of Kosovo; Vojislav Šešelj, leader of the Serb Radical Party whose trial is set to start at the end of this month; Rasim Delic, war-time BiH Army Commander; Ljubo Boškoski, former Macedonian Minister of the Interior; Dragomir Miloševic, former general of the Bosnian Serb Army, accused of shelling Sarajevo, and Jovica Stanišic and Frenki Simatovic, both former heads of the Serbian State Security Service, charged with crimes committed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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