JURIST - Paper Chase: Bosnia police arrest two suspected in Srebrenica killings

[JURIST] Law enforcement officials from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Wednesday arrested [press release] Momir Pelemis and Slavko Peric on suspicion that they committed genocide by engaging in the capture and execution of 1700 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] during July 1995. The Special Department for War Crimes of the Prosecutor's Office of BiH [official website] directed the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) to arrest the two men, who were apprehended in the northeast town of Zvornik. From 1992-1995 Pelemis and Peric served in the Serb Zvornik brigade first battalion as deputy commander and assistant commander, respectively. The prosecutor's office is expected to charge the two men with genocide for violating Article 171 of the Criminal Code of BiH [text, PDF]. Reuters has more. From Sarajevo, the Federal News Agency has local coverage.

The arrests of Pelemis and Peric are the latest in a series of arrests stemming from the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Last week, the Court of BiH [official website, in Bosnian] sentenced former Bosnian Serb special police officer Vaso Todorovic [Court of BiH materials] to six years in prison [JURIST report] for committing crimes against humanity in the Srebrenica massacre. Todorovic was previously charged with genocide before accepting a plea agreement reducing the charge to crimes against humanity. As part of the agreement, Todorovic agreed to testify in related cases.

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