Panel identifies 17,000 participants in Srebrenica massacre
A Bosnian Serb commission said today it has identified more than 17,000 participants in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst slaughter of civilians since the Second World War.
The Special Bosnian Serb Government Working Group, which has been compiling the report since 2003, said the names would not be publicly released but would be turned over to the state prosecutor’s office for review and possible charges.
The commission said it submitted the report to the office of Bosnia’s top international official, Paddy Ashdown, who requested it as part of efforts to bring to justice those responsible for the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys – one of the worst atrocities in Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.
The panel said that 19,473 members of various Bosnian Serb armed forces and civilians took part in various ways in the massacre, and that of those, 17,074 had been identified by name.
The commission did not establish how many of the participants were directly involved in the slaughter because its mandate “was not to establish the level of responsibility in the killings”, said Smail Cekic, a member of the panel.
The UN war crimes tribunal’s top two wanted fugitives, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military leader, Gen. Ratko Mladic, were indicted together in 1995 for genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from the Srebrenica killings.
