Bosnian court releases Serbs convicted of genocide over procedural mistakes during trial

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina – A Bosnian court has released 10 Bosnian Serb war crimes convicts, including six jailed for genocide, because it applied the wrong criminal code during their trials.

Those six were sentenced to 28 to 33 years for having participated in the killing of more than 1,000 Muslim men in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Families of the victims said they were outraged by the move, claiming it "defies reason."

The European human rights court in Strasbourg ruled that judges initially violated the men's human rights by applying the harsher criminal code adopted in 2003 rather than the code in force when the crimes were committed.

The court said Tuesday the original verdicts still stand and only the appeals procedure will be repeated, in some cases as soon as December.