Dutch Police Arrest Two Bosnian War Crimes Suspects

The Dutch police detained the two war crimes suspects on Thursday, acting on a request from the Bosnian prosecution, but did not release their names, according to the NLTimes website.

One of them is a 43-year-old former member of the 103rd Brigade of the Bosnian Croat Army, and was arrested in the western town of Spijkenisse, the prosecutors said in a statement.

“The request for his extradition states that in June 1992 he served as camp commander in the Derventa region, where Serbian civilians were imprisoned in a school,” they said.

The other suspect is a 52-year-old male, who was arrested in the town of Heumen, and has dual citizenship of Bosnia and the Netherlands.

“He was involved in the murder, torture as well as the physical and psychological mistreatment of the civilians; he once accused a prisoner of trying to escape after which the prisoner was shot dead with an automatic weapon. Others were forced to view the dead body,” the prosecutors said.

“It is suspected that together with an armed group, he killed a resident of the Bosnian village of Beslagici; the group had opened fire on the man’s house, forcing him to run out, where they shot him. They then burned the house down. A woman and daughter who lived next door managed to jump out of a window and escape,” they added.

The prosecutors’ statement said that a request for the ex-fighters’ extradition will soon be heard by a court in The Hague.