Arrests over 1995 massacre

Arrests over 1995 massacre

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnian police arrested three former policemen suspected of taking part in genocide against Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995, Europe’s worst massacre since World War II, the state prosecutor said yesterday.
Dusko Jevic, 52, and Zoran Ilic, 36, were arrested on Wednesday by the State Protection and Investigation Agency in Srebrenica and Mendeljev Djuric, 49, in the northeastern town of Bijeljina, a spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office said.
“The three were members of the Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry and are detained on orders of the state prosecutor on suspicion of genocide over the Srebrenica massacre,” Boris Grubesic told Reuters.
The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague has sentenced seven Bosnian Serbs for the Srebrenica massacre. Nine more are on trial. Mladic is still on the run, 14 years after he was indicted.
The Bosnian war crimes court, set up in 2005 to relieve the burden on the Hague-based tribunal, has put dozens of Bosnian Serbs on trial over Srebrenica. Twelve have been jailed, seven acquitted and seven are still being tried.

Ex-soldier sentenced

Separately yesterday, the court sentenced former soldier Zoran Maric, a 45-year-old Serb, to 15 years in jail for crimes against civilians for killing and wounding dozens of Bosnian Muslims early in the country’s 1992-95 war.
Maric reached a plea deal with the court, admitting participating in the killing in a western Bosnian village that occurred on September 10, 1992, the court said in a statement.
He was found guilty of taking part as co-perpetrator in the imprisonment and forcible removal from their homes of civilian Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) in the village of Osoje.
“Imprisoned civilians were taken to a place called Tisovac where they were ordered to line up next to the edge of an abyss after which members of the Serb Republic army opened fire and killed 23 persons,” said the court, adding that four civilians were wounded and one was unharmed.
The trial of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic opened in The Hague this week, with prosecutors accusing him of leading a genocidal campaign against Bosnian Muslims during the war. Karadzic, who denies all charges, boycotted the hearing.