Bosnia Serb Court To Rule In Feb. On Mosque Claim

This is the first court case in Bosnia in which a religious community has sought group reparation for damages.

A local court said on Wednesday it would rule in February on a compensation claim filed by the Islamic community eight years ago over the wartime destruction of 14 mosques in the Serb-run town of Banja Luka.

This is the first court case in Bosnia in which a religious community has sought group reparation for damages.

The Islamic community said that religious objects, including the 15th and 16th century Arnaudija and Ferhadija mosques, were blown up or set ablaze during overnight curfew hours in Banja Luka between April and September 1993.

"The Serb Republic and Banja Luka authorities must take the responsibility for systemic, intentional and planned demolition of mosques in the territory they controlled," the Islamic community's lawyer, Esad Hrvacic, told the court.

The Serb republic is an autonomous region created under the Dayton peace accords that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war. It makes up Bosnia along with the Muslim-Croat federation.

The charges were filed in 2000, but the court in the main Bosnian Serb city began proceedings in the lawsuit only in 2007 after a constitutional court order.

Hrvacic said the Islamic community wanted 64.7 million Bosnian marka ($42.5 million) compensation for the demolition of the mosques in the town, which was spared other war activity.

The Bosnian Serbs, supported by the Serb-dominated army of ex-Yugoslavia, began fighting Bosnian Muslims and Croats in 1992 in a bid to take part of Bosnia for their own Serb Republic.

There was widespread ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs from land the Serbs wanted, and many religious buildings were destroyed.

Hrvacic said Banja Luka authorities tried to hide the traces of destruction and erased the mosques from Banja Luka master plans to prevent their reconstruction.

"This proves the authorities had intended to destroy all traces of the mosques' existence, violating the law obliging them to protect all religious sites ..." he said.

Serb Republic attorney Dragan Spasojevic said the Islamic community could not sue the Serb Republic and the case had become obsolete.

The Ferhadija Mosque, regarded as one of the finest outside the Arab world, was on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites and is being rebuilt.

The Islamic community says 618 mosques were destroyed in Bosnia in the war, 90 of them in the Banja Luka area. Only 5,000 Muslims live in Banja Luka now, down from 30,000 before the war.