Bosnia arrests eight over wartime killings of Muslims

Sarajevo: Bosnian police arrested Tuesday eight ethnic Serbs suspected of taking part in the killings of around 120 Muslim men and boys at the start of the 1990s war, prosecutors said.

The eight men are suspected of a role in the “illegal detention and killing” of the Muslims, including 15 boys, in the northwestern area of Prijedor in July 1992, the national prosecutor’s office said.

At the time the suspects were members of a local crisis committee, police and the armed forces, it said in a statement.

The victims were taken to a community centre and a football stadium where they were tortured and mistreated for three days.

“Only a few victims survived the shooting and their testimonies were key for clarifying the crime,” the statement said.

Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic is currently standing trial in a UN court in The Hague which is nearing its end.

Mladic’s charges include his role in the atrocities in the Prijedor region.

Bosnian Serbs took control of the area in April 1992, forcing non-Serbs to leave their homes.

Thousands of people were thrown into detention camps, where they were held in squalid conditions. Many were tortured, and many executed.

Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed some 100,000 lives.

Agence France-Presse