Bosnian Serb politician indicted for genocide

Bosnia’s war crimes court has confirmed a genocide indictment against a Serbian politician over the executions of Srebrenica Muslims during the country’s 1992-95 war.

Dragomir Vasic, a member of the parliament of Republika Srpska – one of Bosnia’s two independent administrative parts – is accused of participating in the forcible removal of Srebrenica civilians, the separation of men and boys from their families, and their execution, the court said on Thursday.

More than 8,000 Muslim Bosniac men and boys were killed in just a few days after Srebrenica, a UN-declared “safe area,” was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.

At the time, Vasic was police chief in Zvornik, near Srebrenica.

‘Hornet’s nest’

Separately on Thursday, Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor said his office has faced an orchestrated campaign by war criminals and nationalists – including accusations of spying for the US levelled also by some officials – after it
recently moved to open sensitive cases from the Balkan country’s wartime past.

Vladimir Vukcevic told the AP news agency that he, his team and their families have received death threats and faced attacks in the nationalist media that have “coincided with our work in about four cases”.

In late December, two politicians from the ruling coalition filed espionage charges against the prosecutors for allegedly revealing sensitive information about their cases to US embassy officials.

Vukcevic said: “We have stirred up a hornet’s nest”.