Bosnian Serb Lukic Cousins Face Joint Hague Trial

Bosnian Serbs Milan and Sredoje Lukic will face a joint trial in The Hague.

Bosnian Serbs Milan and Sredoje Lukic, cousins accused of war crimes in Visegrad during the 1992-1995 conflict, will face a joint trial in The Hague, the U.N. war crimes tribunal said on Friday.

Milan Lukic, who led a paramilitary group known as the "Avengers" or "White Eagles", was ordered to stand trial in The Hague earlier this month, instead of a court in Bosnia, because of the gravity of his charges. These include the murder of at least 100 Bosnian Muslims in and around Visegrad.

The tribunal's Referral Bench had been considering whether to transfer Sredoje Lukic, a member of the same unit, to Bosnia for trial but it decided on Friday that both should go before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

"The Referral Bench considered that this was in the interest of justice, as the two cases are factually very closely related," the tribunal said in a statement.

"It also noted the Prosecution's argument that separate trials would have risked increasing the trauma for witnesses, who would have had to testify twice," it said.

Both are charged with multiple crimes during the conflict in southeastern Bosnia and both have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The charges include an incident where the prosecution says the paramilitary unit barricaded about 70 Bosnian Muslim women, children and elderly men in a house and set fire to the building while shooting at those who tried to escape through windows.

Milan Lukic, who was on the run for almost seven years, was described by the tribunal as "perhaps the most significant paramilitary leader tried by the Tribunal to date."