Bosnia's Muslim political leader on Thursday said Radovan Karadzic's genocide conviction was the "most important verdict" since the Nuremberg trials for prominent Nazis.
UN war crimes judges in The Hague sentenced the wartime Bosnian Serb leader to 40 years in prison after finding him guilty of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and nine other charges of murder, persecution, and hostage-taking during Bosnia's 1992-1995 ethnic conflict.
"What is important is that a sentence has been passed against a terrible political ideology," said Bakir Izetbegovic, the Muslim member and chairman of Bosnia's tripartite presidency.
"Crimes were prepared in an organised, systematic and committed manner. Hundreds of thousands were driven out (of their homes) and the traces of their culture and their religion were later deleted," he told a press conference.
"This is the most important verdict since Nuremberg."
Almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys lost their lives in the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
The atrocity was the worst in Europe since World War II.