The UN's Yugoslav war crimes tribunal Tuesday sentenced a former member of ex-Bosnian Serb paramilitary Milan Lukic's defence team to a year in jail for bribing witnesses to sign false statements.

Jelena Rasic, 28, who was Lukic's former case adminstrator, last month pleaded guilty to five counts of contempt of court, including paying three witnesses to give false evidence.

"We believe the severity of the crimes committed by Jelena Rasic deserves a sentence of immediate imprisonment of 12 months detention at the United Nations' detention unit," Judge Howard Morrison told the Hague-based court.

The three-judge bench however suspended eight months of Rasic's sentence for two years, saying she would also be given credit for 78 days she already spent in the court's detention cells in a nearby seaside suburb of The Hague.

Judges said they decided to suspend Rasic's sentence given her "difficult circumstances" by being the detention unit's only woman prisoner, her health, young age and the fact that she never before committed a crime.

The ICTY sentenced one of the three men, Zuhdija Tabakovic, who signed the false statement in return for 1,000 euros (U$1,300), to three months in jail in March 2010.

Lukic and his cousin Sredoje Lukic were convicted on July 20, 2009, with Sredoje Lukic receiving a 30-year-sentence for his role in the conflict that killed 100,000 people.

They were convicted of murder and extermination of Bosnian Muslim civilians, committed as leaders or members of the White Eagles, a Bosnian Serb paramilitary unit in Visegrad, southeastern Bosnia.

A hearing to appeal their sentences was held September 14-15, 2011. The judges' decision was pending.