Bosnia Reopens Investigation into Yugoslav Troops’ Killings

The prosecution said on Wednesday that it has rejected appeals against the reopening of the investigation into the attack on the Yugoslav People’s Army convoy on Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo as it withdrew from the Bosnian capital in May 1992.

The investigation into 14 Bosnian political and military officials was suspended in January 2012, causing anger among Serbs.
Relatives of the soldiers who were killed, with help from the interior ministry in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska, appealed to the state Constitutional Court.

In January this year, the Constitutional Court ordered the state prosecution to decide within three months on the relatives’ objections to the suspension of the investigation.

The Yugoslav People’s Army convoy was attacked in Dobrovoljacka Street on May 3, 1992 as it was pulling out of Sarajevo, and several soldiers were killed or wounded.

Nobody has been tried for the deaths so far.

The Serbian authorities claim that over 40 Yugoslav servicemen and officers were killed and more than 70 wounded.

As a result of an ongoing investigation in Serbia, two suspects have been detained in recent years – former Bosnian presidency member Ejup Ganic was arrested in Britain and former Bosnian Army general Jovan Divjak in Austria.

But courts in Britain and Austria decided not to extradite them to Serbia, but to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Meanwhile the question of installing a memorial at the site of the soldiers’ deaths on Dobrovoljacka Street has long been a matter of dispute.