Serb prosecutors charge eight over Srebrenica massacre

Serbia’s war crimes prosecutors have brought charges against eight suspects in the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, when some 8,000 Muslims were killed by Bosnian Serb troops.

The prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the men – all former members of the Bosnian Serb special police – had been charged with taking part in the brutal killing of about 1,300 people at a warehouse in the village of Kravica, on the outskirts of Srebrenica.

In the morning, Serb police asked the survivors to come out and then killed them, too.

Those charged on Thursday include special police unit commander Nedeljko Milidragovic, also known as ‘Nedjo the Butcher,’ who gave the order for the killings, prosecutors said.

The other suspects were members of his unit. If found guilty, they face the maximum penalty of 20 years in jail.

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Chief war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told the AP news agency that “this indictment shows Serbia’s position toward the biggest war crime committed in Europe after World War II”.

“No victim or war criminal will be forgotten,” Vukcevic said.

Bosnian Serbs overran Srebrenica in July 1995 and killed most of the town’s men and boys over several days, burying their remains in several mass graves around the town.

Two UN courts have called the Srebrenica massacre genocide.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and the army commander Ratko Mladic are on trial for several crimes, including genocide, at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, for Srebrenica and other atrocities of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

Serbia backed Bosnian Serbs during the conflict, but has pledged to deal with its wartime past as the country seeks EU membership