It was the first time in the court's 10-year history that a life sentence was been passed.

Milomir Stakic, a 41-year-old doctor, was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for establishing a network of brutal prison camps where hundreds of Muslims were killed and thousands tortured, raped or treated with extreme brutality in 1992.

"Dr Milomir Stakic is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment," said Judge Wolfgang Schomburg, reading the verdict as Stakic stood, looking stunned. The court said he would be eligible for parole in 20 years.

It was the third time the court has handed down an acquittal of genocide charges, the most serious crime to come before the court and the hardest to prove. The court has convicted only one person, Bosnian general Radislav Krstic, of genocide.

The balding, bearded Stakic had faced two counts of genocide and six counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for the murder, rape and torture administered in the camps set up in the Prijedor region of northwestern Bosnia during the summer of 1992.

Without referring to the Milosevic case, however, the judge said the genocide ruling applied only to Stakic and should not mean another trial cannot reach another conclusion when presented with other evidence.

The Milosevic trial has been adjourned until Aug. 25 because of concerns about his health.

The court said that as the top administrator of the Prijedor region, Stakic was responsible for the atrocities committed there.

He presided over establishment of two notorious detention centers where thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats were held captive until international exposure forced the Serbs to close them.

Stakic's indictment listed specific incidents of murder and brutality, such as the killing of 120 people taken in two buses from the Keraterm and Omarska camps in August 1992, the month the camps were closed.

Stakic has been at the tribunal's detention unit since he was handed over by Serb authorities in March 2001. In the seven months of hearings that ended last April, 101 witnesses testified.