SARAJEVO, November 9 - RAPSI, Yulia Petrovskaya. The president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Theodor Meron has denied the request to release Momcilo Krajisnik on parole. Krajisnik was one of the main Serbian leaders during the Bosnian War of 1992-1995.

ICTY President Theodor Meron cited the graveness of his crimes as the reason for refusing the request.

Krajisnik is serving a 20-year sentence in a UK prison under an ICTY ruling, which found him guilty of the forced deportation and prosecution of the local non-ethnic Serbian population.

Last December, he submitted a third request to be released him on parole, as he has already served over half his sentence. UK law allows for parole hearings in such cases.

Krajisnik, a close ally of former Bosnian Serbs leader Radovan Karadzic, was arrested in 2000. The ICTY initially sentenced him to 27 years in prison in 2006. The sentence was reduced to 20 years in 2009.

It is common practice to place an individual convicted by the ICTY in a prison in an EU state. The former Bosnian Serb Army's chief of staff is also serving his sentence in the UK. The ICTY sentenced him to 25 years for the genocide of the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995.