Five Bosnia Train Massacre Suspects Remanded

The court in Sarajevo on Tuesday extended the custody of Serb ex-fighters Boban Indjic, Obrad Poluga, Petko Indjic, Radojica Ristic and Novak Poluga for two months after the prosecution argued that they might influence witnesses and accomplices if released.

Two other suspects, Oliver Krsmanovic and Vuk Ratkovic, were released into house arrest and banned from meeting certain people.

A total of 15 men – some of them former high-ranking Bosnian Serb Army officers – were arrested on December 5 last year in a joint operation staged by Bosnian and Serbian prosecutors.

They are suspected of seizing the passengers from a train in the Bosnian town of Strpci and then killing them in Visegrad. The victims included 18 Bosniaks, one Croat and another person only identified as ‘Afro-Asian’.

Three other suspects detained in Bosnia, Luka Dragicevic, Dragan Lakic and Momir Nikolic, have been released under restraining measures while the five others who were arrested in Serbia are in custody on a 30-day remand.

A former member of the ‘Avengers’ Serb paramilitary unit has already been jailed in Montenegro for his involvement in the killings.

During his trial it was proved that there was an advance plan for the abductions and that the Serbian Railway Company had informed the Serbian interior ministry and the Yugoslav People’s Army about the possibility of seizing the passengers.