Eurasia Press & News
The Bosnian State police have arrested Bosnian Serbs Ostoja Stanisic and Marko Milosevic, under suspicion that they took part in the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995.Stanisic and Milosevic were arrested by the State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, in the territory of Zvornik.A spokesperson for the Bosnian prosecution has told BIRN that four locations are being searched in connection with the arrests – two in the town of Zvornik and two in the nearby village of Petkovci.
Stanisic, the former commander of the 6th Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade of the Army of Republika Srpska, VRS, and Milosevic, his deputy, are suspected of genocide committed at the Petkovci dam in the village of Djulici, in the municipality of Zvornik.
Until now, more than a dozen trials for genocide have come before the State Court in Sarajevo. However, previous trials have mostly focused on the killings in the Kravica and Branjevo villages near Zvornik. This is the first arrest for the killings that took place in Petkovci.
According to the prosecution around a thousand captured boys and men from Srebrenica were executed in Petkovci in July 1995.
The arrested men have both previously testified at the Hague Tribunal, ICTY, at trials for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In June 2010, the Hague tribunal sentenced Drago Nikolic, the former Chief of Security for the Zvornik Brigade of the VRS and Vinko Pandurevic, the former Commander of the Zvornik Brigade of the VRS to 35 and 13 years respectively for their role in the genocide in Srebrenica.
The Bosnian State security agency also arrested another Bosnian Serb man yesterday, with the initials Predrag Milisavljevic, on suspicion of crimes against non-Serbs in Visegrad and Sokolac in 1992. He is suspected of taking part in the murder of more then 40 people.
According to verdicts of the Hague Tribunal, Bosnian Serb military attacks claimed many Bosniak civilian victims in Sokolac in 1992.
Serb forces also intimidated and detained non-Serbs in camps throughout the municipality. Serb leaders, according to the ICTY findings, conducted one of the most notorious campaigns of the conflict to rid the town of its Muslim population in Visegrad.
Between May and June 1992 hundreds of Bosniak men, women and children from the area were executed at various bridges over the river Drina.
