Bosnia Police Arrest Serb for 1995 War Crime

A single artillery shell, fired from Serb mountain positions west of Tuzla, slammed into a group of youngsters in the town`s central square.

Bosnian police on Wednesday arrested a retired Serb general suspected of taking part in a 1995 shelling that killed 71 people and wounded dozens in the northern town of Tuzla, the prosecutor's office said.

"Novak Djukic, 52, was arrested in the area of ... Banja Luka and will be delivered during the day to the prosecutor's office in charge of the case," it said in a statement.

Djukic allegedly took part in one of most notorious war crimes of the 1992-95 war between Bosnia's Serbs, Croats and Muslims.

A single artillery shell, fired from Serb mountain positions west of Tuzla, slammed into a group of youngsters in the town's central square. Most of the dead and wounded were between 18 and 25 years old. The youngest casualty was a three-year-old boy, hit while in the arms of his father.

The case will be handled by Bosnia's war crimes court, set up to take over some of the workload of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

It is currently handling low and mid-level cases as the Hague-based court plans to wind down by 2010. About two dozen suspects are being tried or are awaiting trial at the state court in Sarajevo.