Bosnian war: Sarajevo prosecutor charges 14 former-army personnel with war-crimes
Prosecutors in Sarajevo have indicted 14 former Bosnian-Muslim army personnel for committing war crimes against Bosnian-Serbs during the country's ethnic war in the 1990s. The accused have been charged with murdering, torturing and persecuting "nearly the whole Serb population" near the town of Konjic. Several brutal war crimes were witnessed during the Bosnian War (1992-1995) and its perpetrators are being brought to justice.
Bosnian Croat war criminal drinks poison in UN courtroom, dies
On November 30, 72-year-old Slobodan Praljak, a Bosnian Croat war criminal, died after he drank poison during an appeal at the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague. Praljak, a former commander of Bosnian Croat forces, said he wasn't a criminal and drank from a bottle after he heard that his 20-year jail term had been upheld. The dramatic incident is being investigated.
The bloody Bosnian war: What happened?
The war commenced in 1992 after the Serbian-led Yugoslavian leadership attacked several cities and towns following a Muslim-Croat led vote for independence from the country. In response, Bosnian-Muslims joined hands with Bosnian-Croats in regions such as Konjic, where they were in majority and targeted the ethnic-Serbs. The war is estimated to have claimed at least 100,000 lives and left about 2 million people homeless.
Why is the indictment of Bosnian-Muslim army personnel significant?
The Bosnian-Serbs, Croats and Bosnian-Muslims are all known to have committed war crimes during the Bosnian conflict. However, local and international war-crime tribunals have handed out the majority of indictments to Serbs so far.
Prosecutors charge Serbian army personnel with genocide
In a separate development, Sarajevo prosecutors indicted 4 Serbian army personnel for genocide resulting in the deaths of thousands of Muslims in the town of Srebrenica. The Srebrenica massacre has been described as the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II. This came after 4 Bosnian-Serb army officers were indicted for murdering and torturing the Muslim population in the town of Vlasenica recently.
