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Bosnian Serb indicted on genocide charges handed over to UN tribunal

Bosnian Serb indicted on genocide charges handed over to UN tribunal

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A Bosnian Serb ex-army officer and aide to the notorious army chief Ratko Mladic was today handed over to the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to face genocide charges over the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica.

Zdravko Tolimir, 48, was transferred to the custody of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague in the Netherlands after being detained by authorities yesterday in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mr. Tolimir had been on the run for two years before his arrest.

Mr. Tolimir, who served as Assistant Commander for Intelligence and Security of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb army and reported directly to Mr. Mladic, faces charges of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and numerous crimes against humanity, including extermination, persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, forcible transfer and deportation.

His arrest and transfer means only the ICTY’s two most wanted men, Mr. Mladic and former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic, remain fugitives from justice for crimes committed in Srebrenica. In total, only five people of the 161 indicted by the Tribunal since it was set up in 1993 are still at large.

Prosecutors allege Mr. Tolimir has responsibility for the murder of thousands of Muslims at Srebrenica in July 1995, when the town was supposed to be a UN-protected area. The indictment also accuses him of making life unbearable for the civilian residents of Srebrenica and Žepa and forcing them to leave the UN-protected areas.

Mr. Tolimir was involved in the murder of Bosnian Muslim prisoners being held in temporary locations around eastern Bosnia in 1995, the indictment states, including the summary execution of more than 1,700 men and boys by an army detachment at the Branjevo Military Farm and the Pilica Cultural Centre.

The ICTY said today that Mr. Tolimir is scheduled to make his first appearance before the Tribunal’s trial chamber on Monday.