Eight arrested after video of Srebrenica executions
shown
By Vesna Peric Zimonjic in Belgrade
03 June 2005

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=643663

Serbian authorities have arrested at least eight men
in connection with the murder of Muslims in Srebrenica
after a video of the crime was shown at the trial of
Slobodan Milosevic.

The Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said,
after holding talks with the UN's chief war crimes
prosecutor Carla del Ponte, that "a number of
suspects" had been arrested by yesterday for the
"shocking crime".

Ms del Ponte was on a short visit to Belgrade, during
which Serbian leaders promised to hunt down and arrest
within a month General Ratko Mladic, who is wanted by
the war crimes tribunal in The Hague for the 1995
slaughter of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys at
Srebrenica.

Ms del Ponte described the arrests as "a brilliant
operation". "I'm particularly grateful for the
reaction on the footage." But she added: "In a few
hours they were able to identify the perpetrators. I
asked this morning that they react as quickly to
arrest the fugitives who are still at large,"
referring to General Mladic and the former Bosnian
Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic.

The prosecution presented the videotape at the war
crimes tribunal on Wednesday. It showed the execution
of six Bosnian Muslim youths by members of the
notorious paramilitary "Scorpions" unit of Mr
Milosevic's secret police. The unit committed war
crimes against non-Serb civilians in Bosnia, Croatia
and in Kosovo.

Short clips of the video were shown on Serbian
television on Wednesday night. It was taken by a man
participating in the murders at Trnovo, 18 miles south
of Sarajevo in Serb-held territory, after the fall of
the Bosnian "safe haven" of Srebrenica. At one point
in the footage, he claims that the battery of his
camera is low. The man is told by one of the
executioners to go on as long as he can.

The video begins with a Serbian Orthodox priest
blessing paramilitaries before they go into battle. It
ends with what looks like the same paramilitaries
shooting the six civilian prisoners in the back, with
machine guns. The young men appeared to have been
severely beaten and had their hands tied behind their
backs. The killers in the video are wearing the black
uniforms of the Scorpions.

The Srebrenica massacre, the worst war crime in Europe
since the end of the Second World War, remains a
divisive subject for Serbs. Conservatives and
nationalists have convinced the public that the crime
is the invention of anti-Serb forces abroad with a
recent survey showing that only half the population
believe it happened. The same survey suggested that
two-thirds of the public believedMr Karadzic and
General Mladic were heroes.

But analysts say the airing of the video and the quick
action of the authorities might be a prelude to the
arrest of the two, which is the precondition for
Serbia to start talks with the EU on an association
agreement, due to open in October. Ms del Ponte wants
General Mladic and Mr Karadzic to be arrested and
extradited to The Hague by 11 July, the tenth
anniversary of the massacre.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Serbia shocked by video showing Srebrenica shootings

Agencies in Belgrade
Friday June 3, 2005
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/serbia/article/0,2479,1498292,00.html


They are the images that have finally, 10 years later,
shocked a nation. A man, several men, are unloaded
from a truck, marched to a wooded hillside and shot,
one by one, in the back. Two prisoners are ordered to
carry the bodies to a barn. They too are then
executed.

The murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from
Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 is well documented.
But a video that emerged this week during the trial of
the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, has
provoked a bout of soul-searching in Serbia, parts of
which are still in denial over the horrors of the
Bosnian war.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Video of Serbs in Srebrenica Massacre Leads to Arrests
By NICHOLAS WOOD
Published: June 3, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/international/europe/03serbia.html

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia, June 2 - Almost 10 years after
the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys by
Serbian security forces in Srebrenica, a video has
surfaced that presents graphic details of their fate.
Several people in the video were arrested as a result,
the Serbian prime minister said Thursday.

The graphic film was shot near the town whose name now
recalls the worst massacre in Europe since World War
Two, in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed
over several days and their bodies bulldozed into mass
graves.

The tape - shown at the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague on
Wednesday and rebroadcast on Serbian television on
Thursday - shows the killing of six Muslim men by
members of a Serbian paramilitary police unit.

While the number of those killed represents a tiny
proportion of those who died in July 1995, the video
is being seen as irrefutable evidence that Serbia's
police forces, and not just Bosnian Serb forces, took
part in the massacre, evidence that challenges the
commonly held view among Serbs that the atrocity never
took place.
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