Post by MiG on Jan 4, 2008 15:05:38 GMT -5
Bosnia court indicts Serb ex-general for war crimes
SARAJEVO, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Bosnia's war crimes court indicted a retired Serb general on Friday for ordering a shelling in 1995 that killed 71 people and wounded hundreds in the northern town of Tuzla, it said in a statement.
"The Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina confirmed the indictment in the Novak Djukic case, which charges Novak Djukic with war crimes against civilians," the statement said.
Djukic was a commander of the Bosnian Serb army in the Tuzla region during the 1992-95 war. Tuzla was declared a United Nations safe zone in 1993.
Djukic, who was promoted to the rank of general after the war and became the Bosnian Serb army chief of staff before retiring in 2005, was arrested in November under suspicion that he ordered one of worst massacres in the Bosnian war.
A single artillery shell, fired from Serb mountain positions west of Tuzla, slammed into a group of youngsters in the town's central square. Most of the dead and wounded were between 18 and 25 years old. The youngest casualty was a three-year-old boy, hit while in the arms of his father.
The indictment said that on May 25, 1995 Djukic ordered his units to fire a missile at the centre of Tuzla.
"As a result of the explosion of the missile, 71 persons were killed while approximately 240 sustained injuries," the court said.
The Bosnian war crimes court was set up to take over some of the workload of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It is currently handling low and mid-level cases as the Hague-based court plans to wind down by 2010. (Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic)
SARAJEVO, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Bosnia's war crimes court indicted a retired Serb general on Friday for ordering a shelling in 1995 that killed 71 people and wounded hundreds in the northern town of Tuzla, it said in a statement.
"The Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina confirmed the indictment in the Novak Djukic case, which charges Novak Djukic with war crimes against civilians," the statement said.
Djukic was a commander of the Bosnian Serb army in the Tuzla region during the 1992-95 war. Tuzla was declared a United Nations safe zone in 1993.
Djukic, who was promoted to the rank of general after the war and became the Bosnian Serb army chief of staff before retiring in 2005, was arrested in November under suspicion that he ordered one of worst massacres in the Bosnian war.
A single artillery shell, fired from Serb mountain positions west of Tuzla, slammed into a group of youngsters in the town's central square. Most of the dead and wounded were between 18 and 25 years old. The youngest casualty was a three-year-old boy, hit while in the arms of his father.
The indictment said that on May 25, 1995 Djukic ordered his units to fire a missile at the centre of Tuzla.
"As a result of the explosion of the missile, 71 persons were killed while approximately 240 sustained injuries," the court said.
The Bosnian war crimes court was set up to take over some of the workload of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It is currently handling low and mid-level cases as the Hague-based court plans to wind down by 2010. (Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic)
Source: www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL04725439