Four Bosnian Serbs go on trial for Srebrenica

Four Bosnian Serbs went on trial on Friday at Bosnia's war crimes court for crimes committed during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Four Bosnian Serbs went on trial on Friday at Bosnia's war crimes court for crimes committed during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslims.

Two of the suspects, former military policemen Zdravko Bozic and Mladen Blagojevic, were deported to Bosnia last June and November for lying to U.S. immigration authorities about their service in the Bosnian Serb military during the 1992-95 war.

Together with Zeljko Zaric and Zoran Zivanovic, who were arrested in Bosnia last December, they were charged with the detention, murder and forcible transfer of Muslims after Serb forces overran the U.N. "safe area" of Srebrenica.

"According to the prosecution, the four took part in the illegal military operation in the safe area of Srebrenica in July 1995," Bosnian radio reported Prosecutor Kwao Hong Ip as telling the court.

"They are also responsible for not preventing the crime or protecting the civilians," he said.

According to the indictment the accused confined 2,000 to 3,000 unarmed Muslim civilians in a primary school in Bratunac near Srebrenica and participated in the abuse, beatings and cruel treatment of the detainees.

It also said that Bozic and Blagojevic together with six other members of the Serb army executed at least 5 Muslims while Zaric and Zivanovic separated three Muslims from other detainees and killed them by firing from automatic firearms.

In December, the U.S. authorities arrested 26 Bosnian Serbs and accused a number of them of taking part in Europe's worst single atrocity since World War Two.

Some 8,000 Muslims from Srebrenica and surrounding villages were killed in July 1995. The bodies of about half have been found in more than 80 mass graves in the Srebrenica area.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and military chief Ratko Mladic have been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague over Srebrenica and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo.

Both men are still at large. Karadzic is believed to be hiding in eastern Bosnia or Montenegro and Mladic in Serbia.

Another 11 Bosnian Serbs are on trial for Srebrenica at the Bosnian war crimes court while about two dozen are either being tried or have been convicted by the U.N. war crimes court and courts in Serbia and Croatia.

(Reuters)