Momcilo Krajisnik, a Bosnian Serb politician who has been sentenced for war crimes, died from coronavirus (COVID-19) on September 15, Klix.ba reported.

Krajisnik, 75, was hospitalised at the University Clinical Centre in Banja Luka in Bosnia & Heregovina’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity where he died from coronavirus-related complications.

Krajisnik was sentenced by the Hague Tribunal (ICTY) for his involvement in crimes against humanity against non-Serb civilians during the bloody 1992-1995 Bosnian war. He was sentenced in 2006 to 27 years in jail, but the verdict was reduced to 20 years following an appeal. He was acquitted of the charges of murder as a war crime, genocide and complicity in genocide.

In 2013, Krajisnik was released and welcomed as hero in Republika Srpska.

Krajisnik was one of the most prominent Bosnian Serb political leaders during the war, along with Radovan Karadzic and Biljana Plavsic. He was a co-founder of the Serb Democratic Party with Karadzic, who is in jail for life after being found guilty of genocide and other wartime crimes.

Between 1991 and 1996 Krajisnik was speaker of Republika Srpska’s parliament and was a member of the entity’s presidency for a short period. Krajisnik led the Bosnian Serb team that negotiated the Dayton peace accord that put an end to the war.

Krajisnik was elected as the Serb member of Bosnia’s state-level tripartite presidency in the first election after the war in 1996.

In 2000, he was arrested and sent to The Hague to be tried for wartime crimes.