Reuters, June 27, 2005
Bosnian Serb police arrest 11 on war crimes charges
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Bosnian Serb police said on Monday they had arrested 11 people on war crimes charges.
The arrests, carried out over the last few days in the eastern Podrinje region, were ordered by Bosnia's state prosecutor, said a statement from the Interior Ministry of Bosnia's Serb Republic.
The statement gave no details about the identities of those arrested but said they were not on a list of 892 Bosnian Serb civil servants suspected of involvement in the killing of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1995. The list was handed over to the prosecutor's office in late March.
"(The ministry) is determined that all individuals responsible for war crimes need to be identified and processed before competent courts," the statement said.
The state prosecutor's office declined to comment.
The Serb Republic has arrested several locally-charged war crimes suspects and this year worked together with Serbia on handing over several Bosnian Serbs to the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague.
But it is under strong international pressure to start arresting those indicted by the U.N. tribunal, including The Hague's top suspects, Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic.
Both have evaded capture for years and are believed to be sheltered by hardline supporters in Bosnia and Serbia-Montenegro. Brussels has said that neither country can hope to join the European Union with the two men still at large.
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