Bosnian Serbs arrested over Srebrenica massacre

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Thu Oct 29, 2009 10:59am EDT

* Police arrest three Serb former policemen over Srebrenica

* Bosnia court jails Serb soldier over 1992 killings

(Updates with war crimes verdict against a Bosnian Serb)

By Maja Zuvela

SARAJEVO, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Bosnian police arrested three former Serb policemen suspected of taking part in genocide against Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995, Europe's worst massacre since World War Two, the state prosecutor said on Thursday.

Dusko Jevic, 52, and Zoran Ilic, 36, were arrested on Wednesday by the State Protection and Investigation Agency in Srebrenica and Mendeljev Djuric, 49, in the northeastern town of Bijeljina, said a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office.

"The three were members of the Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry and are detained on orders of the state prosecutor on suspicion of genocide over the Srebrenica massacre," Boris Grubesic told Reuters.

Bosnian Serb forces, commanded by General Ratko Mladic, killed about 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys after the eastern town, which was a United Nations-protected safe zone, fell into their hands in 1995.

Most were killed while trying to escape through woods, either shot down or arrested and taken to places of execution before being buried in mass graves.

The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague has sentenced seven Bosnian Serbs for the Srebrenica massacre. Nine more are on trial. Mladic is still on the run, 14 years after he was indicted.

The Bosnian war crimes court, set up in 2005 to relieve the burden on the Hague-based tribunal, has put dozens of Bosnian Serbs on trial over Srebrenica. Twelve have been jailed, seven acquitted and seven are still being tried.

Separately on Thursday, the court sentenced former Serb soldier Zoran Maric, 45, to 15 years in jail for crimes against civilians for killing and wounding dozens of Bosnian Muslims early in the country's 1992-95 war.

Maric reached a plea deal with the court, admitting participating in the killing in a western Bosnian village that occurred on Sept. 10, 1992, the court said in a statement.

He was found guilty of taking part as co-perpetrator in the imprisonment and forcible removal from their homes of civilian Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslim) in the village of Osoje.

"Imprisoned civilians were taken to a place called Tisovac where they were ordered to line up next to the edge of an abyss after which members of the Serb Republic army opened fire and killed 23 persons," said the court, adding that four civilians were wounded and one was unharmed.

The trial of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic opened in The Hague this week, with prosecutors accusing him of leading a genocidal campaign against Bosnian Muslims during the war. Karadzic, who denies all charges, boycotted the hearing. (Editing by Adam Tanner and Louise Ireland)



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