A former Bosnian army general was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for failing to stop killings and torture carried out by foreign jihadists who joined his troops during Bosnia's 1990s war.

Sakib Mahmuljin, 68, was deemed responsible for the deaths of more than 50 ethnic Serb prisoners in the northeast regions of Vozuca and Zavidovici towards the end of the conflict in 1995, the Sarajevo court ruled.

The victims were killed by members of the "El Mujahid" -- a notorious unit of mainly foreign Islamist fighters from North Africa and the Middle East, though also from some Western countries, who fell under Mahmuljin's command of the army's third corps.

Mahmuljin "failed to prevent the crimes of murder and inhuman treatment from being committed... and also to act in such a way that the perpetrators of these crimes are punished," the Sarajevo court said in a statement.

The crimes committed under his watch also included torture of several civilians, wounded and prisoners of war, the court said.

Mahmuljin is one of few top Bosnian Muslim army officials to be convicted for the 1992-1995 war that pitted Muslim, Croat and Serb communities against each other, leaving more than 100,000 dead.

His defence lawyers, who can appeal the verdict, argued during the trial that he "had no effective control over the unit."

Most of the foreign Islamist fighters who joined Bosnia's conflict left after war ended with a US-brokered peace deal in 1995.

Some, however, remained in the country where the vast majority of the Muslim population, who make up some 40 percent of the 3.8 million inhabitants, practice a moderate form of Islam.

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