Serbia arrests seven over 1995 Srebrenica massacre

Serbia arrested seven men on Wednesday suspected of taking part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, in the first such arrest in Serbia of alleged triggermen in Europe's worst civilian atrocity since World War II.

"This is the first such case involving people directly suspected of taking part in the Srebrenica massacre... There are other suspects in Serbia and neighboring countries and we are after them as well," said Bruno Vekaric, Serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor.

In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica, a designated United Nations “safe haven.”

The seven, identified only by initials, were said to be members of a Bosnian Serb wartime special police unit. They "are suspected to have committed war crimes against the civilian population," at the Kravica warehouse outside of Srebrenica, where more than 1,000 Muslims were killed in July 1995, the war crimes prosecutor's office said in a statement.

"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," Vekaric said.

"We have never dealt with a crime of such proportions," said Vekaric. "It is very important for Serbia to take a clear position toward Srebrenica through a court process."

Wednesday's arrests were Serbia's first attempt to bring to justice men suspected of involvement in the Srebrenica massacre — the only atrocity in Europe to be labeled genocide by the United Nations since World War II.

Serbia arrested Ratko Mladic — the mastermind — in 2011, sending him to an international criminal court in The Hague, Netherlands. 

In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces opened the Srebrenica offensive with heavy shelling, ignoring Dutch U.N. peacekeeping troops who were stationed in the town. The Serbs — led by Mladic — marched into the town without meeting any resistance. Women sought shelter at the Dutch base, while men and boys fled into the surrounding woods —where they were hunted down by Mladic's forces.

They were taken to a warehouse and the killings started in the late afternoon with bombs hurled through the windows and round after round of automatic gunfire.

The arrests on Wednesday follow a December sweep by the same team of prosecutors of 15 suspects in a separate wartime atrocity — a massacre that followed an abduction from a Bosnian train.

Wire services