Bosnia Charges Serb Mayor with Wartime Persecution

The Bosnian prosecution on Wednesday charged four former Serb policemen – the mayor of the Vlasenica municipality, Miroslav Kraljevic, alongside Mane Djuric, Radenko Stanic, and Goran Garic – with the wartime persecution of Bosniak civilians in 1992 and 1993.

Kraljevic is a politician from the leading Bosnian Serb party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, which is led by Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska.

“The indictment covers murders and forcible disappearance of at least 22 people, unlawful detention, torture and abuse of several dozen people in several detention facilities in the Vlasenica area,” the prosecution said in a statement.

The indictment also charges the four ex-policemen with the pillaging and destruction of property owned by Bosniaks, as well as other crimes that caused almost the entire Bosniak population of the Vlasenica area to leave by the spring of 1993.

The indictment alleges that, acting in collaboration with other members of the army and police and using threats of force, the defendants, who were armed, took Bosniak civilians from their homes and other locations to detention facilities including the Susica camp.

“The detainees were subjected to severe torture and abuse. Some of them even died, while a certain number of detainees went missing without any trace. Their mortal remains have still not been found,” the indictment alleges.

Djuric is charged as the former chief of the police’s Public Security Station in Vlasenica, Stanic as the former commander of the station, Kraljevic as the former commander of the police special squad at the station, and Garic as a former policeman.

The indictment has been filed to the state court for confirmation.