Srebrenica leader faces accusers

By STEPHEN CASTLE

THE HAGUE - Three days after being seized by Nato troops, Dragan Obrenovic, appeared before a war crimes tribunal yesterday and denied orchestrating the slaughter of more than 5000 civilians near Srebrenica in 1995.

Facing charges of complicity in genocide, murder and crimes against humanity, Obrenovic is accused of helping to mastermind the worst single atrocity in Europe since the Second World War, and could be jailed for life if convicted.

Dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, the Bosnian Serb former military commander spent less than 15 minutes in court as he denied all charges against him.

Looking nervous and speaking through an interpreter, Obrenovic replied "your Honour, not guilty" to each of the five counts read out, before Judge David Hunt adjourned the proceedings.

The indictment says Obrenovic helped execute more than 5000 men and boys from the Srebrenica enclave, later exhuming and reburying some of the bodies to conceal the scale of the carnage.

Although the full trial will not be heard until next year, the arrest of the 38-year-old marks a significant point in attempts to bring to justice those responsible for one of the most horrific episodes of the war in Bosnia.

Deemed a "safe haven" by the United Nations, Srebrenica was protected by a force of lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers who eventually abandoned the Muslim population to its fate. The mass executions there came to symbolise the impotence of Western attempts to contain violence in the Balkans.

In July 1995 Bosnian Serb troops entered Srebrenica, rounding up the population and separating the men and boys from the women. After being herded into buses or trucks thousands of male victims were executed and buried in mass graves.

The indictment against Obrenovic, which was released yesterday, holds him responsible for the organised mass execution of captured Muslim men, including 800 to 1000 who were machinegunned in a field near the school at Grbavci on July 14.

Obrenovic's men "used heavy equipment to bury the victims in mass graves at the execution site, while the executions continued," says the indictment, adding that "in the evening lights from the engineering machinery illuminated the execution and burial sites during the executions."



Obrenovic's arrest is the first by Nato troops in Bosnia since last June and his transfer to The Hague follows the voluntary surrender of Biljana Plavsic, the most senior Bosnian Serb politician to face justice so far.

The tribunal sees this as evidence that the net is closing on indicted war criminals and is in the process of appointing a pool of 27 temporary judges to help speed up the process of justice.

However, the court's strategy of going after the political and military elite of the policy of ethnic cleansing has yet to snare the most prominent leaders. Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and military chief Ratko Mladic remain at large.

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