The judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Thursday held former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic responsible for the Srebrenica genocide in which 8,000 people were killed in 1995, and sentenced him to 40 years in prison. According to Reuters, the former president of the breakaway Bosnian Serb Republic will appeal the verdict in which he was pronounced guilty on 10 out of 11 charges.

"The accused was the sole person within Republika Srpska [the Bosnian Serb Republic] with the power to prevent the killing of the Bosnian Muslim males," said presiding judge O-Gon Kwok. The judge at the United Nations body said Karadzic ordered that the Muslim captives be transferred elsewhere to be killed, instead of preventing the mass killing. According to the three-judge panel, Karadzic was "at the apex of power," heading the self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic and was supreme commander of its armed forces, when crimes were committed by his troops.

Karadzic's counsel said that the 70-year-old was "disappointed by the verdict, astonished by the reasoning and he wants to appeal." He was arrested in 2008 after 11 years on the run, following the war from 1992 to 1995 which killed 1,00,000 people as rival armies went on an ethnic cleansing mission in Bosnia.