But the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia acquitted Milomir Stakic of genocide charges in a judgment which has implications for the case against the former Serbian ruler, Slobodan Milosevic.

Stakic, a 41-year-old doctor, looked stunned as Judge Wolfgang Schomburg read out the judgment, saying that the defendant would not be eligible for parole for 20 years.

“The court considers Milomir Stakic guilty of extermination, persecution, forced expulsion and murder,” Judge Schomburg said, adding: “Despite the system of atrocities perpetrated against the non-Serbs of Prijedor, the court does not consider that this case is a case of genocide.”

As the top official in the Prijedor region of northwest Bosnia in 1992, Stakic played a key role in setting up the infamous Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje detention camps, where 7,000 civilians were held. Hundreds were murdered, tortured and raped in the camps before they were closed after an international outcry at the sight of famished people clutching the metal fencing around them.

The three detention centres were set up as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing that reduced Muslims from 43 per cent of Prijedor’s population before the war to just 1 per cent after it.

The judge said that at least 20,000 people were deported from the Prijedor region during the time that Stakic was head of the Serbian-run Crisis Cell that controlled the local administration. In one incident, 120 people were taken in two buses from the Keraterm and Omarska camps and killed.

During seven months of hearings, Stakic tried to portray himself as an underling who obeyed orders and did not give them.

He had gone into hiding after Mr Milosevic was ousted as President of Yugoslavia in 2000, but was handed over to the war crimes tribunal by Belgrade a year later. He has been in detention ever since.

The ruling will damage the prosecution claim against Mr Milosevic that genocide was perpetrated from the start of the Bosnian war in 1992.

Although the former Yugoslav President may still be convicted of genocide in connection with the massacre of 7,500 Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995, he will now be hopeful of acquittal on that charge in relation to other events during the wars in the former Yugoslavia.

But, in other ways, yesterday’s ruling spelt bad news for the so-called Butcher of the Balkans, with the tribunal showing that it was prepared to hand out a life sentence for the lesser charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Yesterday’s judgment underlined the difficulties of securing a genocide conviction for which the prosecution needs to demonstrate an intent to “destroy wholly or partially a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.

Without a written order or evidence from witnesses, it is hard to supply proof of such intent, lawyers say.

The trial of Mr Milosevic, which began in February 2002 and may not finish until 2006, was adjourned earlier this week for a summer recess until August 25.

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