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Serbian police arrested eight men suspected of taking part in the killing of over 1,000 Bosniaks. Photo by BETA.

Serbian police on Wednesday arrested eight men suspected of taking part in the killing of over 1,000 Bosniaks after Bosnian Serb forces seized the Srebrenica enclave in July 1995.

“It is important to stress that this is the first time that our prosecutor’s office is dealing with the mass killings of civilians and war prisoners in Srebrenica,” Serbian deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric, told the Associated Press news agency.

“We have never dealt with a crime of such proportions,” Vekaric added.

Seven of the men suspected of the war crime against the Bosniak civilians who were killed at a warehouse in the village of Kravica near Srebrenica were identified by the initials N.M., A.G., M.B., A.D., B.M., J.P. and D.P. The eighth, who was arrested a few hours after the others, has not been identified at all.

According to the Serbian prosecution, they are former members of the Jahorina Training Centre, a unit which belonged to the special brigade of the Bosnian Serb police.

BIRN has learned that two of the men arrested are Nedeljko Milidragovic and Aleksa Golijanin, who already have genocide indictments against them issued by the Bosnian court.

According to the charges filed by the Bosnian prosecution, Milidragovic, a former commander of a squad from the Bosnian Serb police special brigade’s Jahorina Training Centre, and Golijanin, a former deputy commander of a Jahorina Training Centre squad, committed genocide against Bosniaks from Srebrenica between July 10 and July 19, 1995.

The Sarajevo prosecution accuses Milidragovic of killing a disabled Bosniak man during a search of the Potacari area near Srebrenica on July 12 and then taking a group of 15 to 20 men away from their families and killing them in a nearby meadow.

He is also charged with ordering the shooting of about 100 Srebrenica captives in the village of Kravica.

Golijanin meanwhile is accused of participating in the capture of several thousand Bosniaks.

He is also charged with ordering Jahorina Training Centre squad members to execute 15 to 20 captives by the side of the road leading from Konjevic Polje to Bratunac, and personally participating in the executions.

Among the victims are 1,000 civilians whose remains were found at the Ravnica and Glogova 1 and 2 mass grave sites in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

More than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed after Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN-protected ‘safe zone’ – a crime which has been classified by international court verdicts as genocide.

The Serbian police and prosecution are still searching for additional suspects who are believed to be in neighbouring countries.

Kada Hotic of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves, which represents families of victims of the massacre, told BIRN that the arrests showed that war crimes suspects who have been hiding in Serbia for years since the Bosnian conflict are not untouchable.

“The prosecutor opened a box and showed that those who thought they can hide are not safe. We hope that they will be prosecuted. There are many war criminals, we are aware that all of them will never be caught. It is enough to know that they are not in peace, that they cannot sleep, that they know that what they did does not pay off,” Hotic said.

The president of the Bosnia-based Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide, Murat Tahirovic, said that it was good news that the Serbian authorities arrested the suspects and should now prosecute them for alleged genocide.

“If they do that, then Serbia is really headed on the right path, we’ll need to congratulate the country,” he said, although he expressed doubt that they would be indicted for genocide.

The state prosecutor’s office in Bosnia and Herzegovina said that the arrests were the result of good cooperation with the prosecutions in Sarajevo and Belgrade.

“The representatives of families of victims of war crimes, as injured parties, gave their approval to the Serbian judiciary to process these suspects, which represents a clear sign of trust and cooperation,” prosecution spokesperson Boris Grubesic said.