BELGRADE, Oct 14, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A Belgrade court sentenced three Bosnian Serb paramilitaries on Tuesday for war crimes linked to the massacre of 20 civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s.

They were found guilty of kidnapping non-Serb civilians from a train in the village of Strpci during the Bosnian War in 1993.

The victims were beaten, robbed, and later killed. Their killers have never been identified.

"The accused Gojko Lukic and Dusko Vasijevic were each sentenced to 10 years in prison, while Dragana Djekic was sentenced to five years," a war crimes court in Belgrade said.

This is a first-instance verdict, and the men can appeal.

The trio were accused initially along with another man, who has since died.

After a previous guilty verdict was overturned on appeal in 2023, the retrial of the men from the Avengers paramilitary group, linked to the Bosnian Serb army, began in January 2024.

According to the prosecutor, the men were tasked with abducting non-Serb passengers off a train travelling between Serbia and Montenegro.

They were convicted for handing the kidnapped passengers over to their killers.

Only four of the victims' bodies have been found.

No investigation has ever been opened into those who orchestrated the massacre.

Milan Lukic, a notorious Serb paramilitary commander linked to the Avengers, is serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity - but he was never convicted for the Strpci killings.

Other members of the Avengers have also been tried for the crimes related to the Strpci murders.

A court in Montenegro sentenced Nebojsa Ranisavljevic in 2004 to 15 years in prison for his role in the abductions, while in Bosnia, seven others were each sentenced in August 2023 to 13 years for their part in the crime.

The Strpci war crime was among countless atrocities committed during the bloody wars that tore apart Yugoslavia, in which an estimated 130,000 people were killed.

A short film about the massacre, by Croatian director Nebojsa Slijepcevic, "The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent", was shortlisted for this year's Oscars and has won numerous awards, including a French Cesar and a European Film Academy prize.