Serbia arrests seven over 1995 Srebrenica massacre

PanARMENIAN.Net - Serbia arrested seven men on Wednesday, March 18, suspected of taking part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, the first such arrests in the ex-Yugoslav republic of accused gunmen in Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, according to Reuters.

The men, arrested in several locations across Serbia, stand accused of executing more than 1,000 Muslim Bosniaks at a warehouse just outside Srebrenica, some of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed in the area after it fell to Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.

"This is the first such case involving people directly suspected of taking part in the Srebrenica massacre," Reuters quoted Bruno Vekaric, Serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor, as saying. "There are other suspects in Serbia and neighboring countries and we are after them as well."

A United Nations court has ruled that the Srebrenica massacre, carried out over the course of several days after the fall of the UN 'safe haven', constituted genocide.

The seven men will most likely stand trial in Serbia, not at the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, where high-profile leaders such as Serbia's late president Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic were tried.

Around 100,000 people died in Bosnia's 1992-95 war during the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia. Serbia arrested Karadzic in 2008 and his military commander Ratko Mladic in 2011. Both are currently standing trial for war crimes in The Hague, including responsibility for Srebrenica, but Wednesday's arrests marked the first time Serbia has gone after those who did the actual killing.