Bosnia wartime commander arrested

SARAJEVO (Reuters)SARAJEVO, October 4 (Reuters) – Bosnian police have arrested Muslim wartime commander Naser Oric, three months after he was acquitted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal of charges against Bosnian Serbs, a police source said Saturday.

Eight people were detained in an operation conducted late on Friday and five were later released, said Robert Cvrtak, the spokesman for the Muslim-Croat federation police. He said that police had conducted raids in Sarajevo and the northern town of Tuzla.

“Three people will be handed over to the Sarajevo cantonal prosecution later today over criminal activity,” Cvrtak told Reuters, declining to confirm their identities. He did not give details of their alleged crimes.

The police source said Oric was among the three people held in custody.

Local media reported that Oric was part of an organized crime group involved in racketeering.

Oric, the Bosnian army commander who had organized the defense of the eastern enclave of Srebrenica during the 1992-95 war, was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes against Bosnian Serbs.

The Hague-based court acquitted him of all charges last July, a move that angered the Bosnian Serbs who see the tribunal as biased against them.