The Hague - The appeal chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday cut the jail sentence for convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Momcilo Krajisnik.

Krajisnik was convicted in 2006 of various charges of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation and the forced transfer of non- Serb civilians from Bosnia during the
1992-95 conflict, and sentenced to 27 years in jail.

That was cut to 20 years on Tuesday by the ICTY appeals chamber.

The Hague-based court confirmed Krajisnik played a key role in the Bosnian Serb leadership along with Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and Biljana Plavsic.

The court said Krajisnik was responsible for several war crimes committed during the conflict in Bosnia Herzegovina, but reversed the sentence on several counts he was convicted for at the original 2006 trial.

During the Balkan war, Krajisnik was chairman of the Bosnian-Serb parliament, a board member of Karadzic's Serb Democratic Party and a member of the Serb National Security council.

The 2006 trial acquitted him of genocide and complicity in genocide.

Krajisnik was first indicted by the Hague-based ICTY in 2000 and his original trial took more than two years, from February 2004 to August 2006. (dpa)