Bosnia arrests three Serb genocide suspects

Bosnian Serbs overran the UN-protected Muslim enclave in July 1995 before summarily killing around 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Bosnian police on Wednesday arrested three former Serb policemen suspected of genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims, police and national television said.

The three men were arrested in the area of the eastern town of Srebrenica and Bijeljina in the northeastern corner of the country, police said in a statement.

Police gave only the initials of the three while national television identified them as Dusko Jelic, 54, Zoran Ilic, 43, and Mendeljev Djuric, 49, who served as Bosnian Serb policemen during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Bosnian Serbs overran the UN-protected Muslim enclave in July 1995 before summarily killing around 8,000 Muslim men and boys within a few days.

The Srebrenica massacre is considered the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

It is the only episode of Bosnia's war that has been ruled a genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), both based in The Hague.

Bosnian courts are allowed to try low-profile war crimes cases, with the ICTY tasked with trying high-ranking wartime officials.