Bosnian Serb Srebrenica Suspect Surrenders

11/04/2001| IslamWeb

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - A Bosnian Serb army officer wanted on murder and other charges stemming from the Srebrenica massacre turned himself in to the United Nations war crimes tribunal Wednesday and was flown to The Hague for trial.
Lieutenant-Colonel Dragan Jokic, 43, surrendered at a NATO base near Banja Luka in Bosnia, his lawyer told Reuters. (Read photo caption below)
The U.N. tribunal said in a statement that Jokic commanded the engineers of the 1st Zvornik Brigade near Srebrenica, when it fell to Serb forces in July 1995. Almost most 8,000 Muslim men and boys were later slaughtered and buried in mass graves after Serbs captured the town, which had been under U.N. protection.
Jokic joins former Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic in the U.N. detention center in the Dutch city, two weeks after Krstic was convicted of genocide for the Srebrenica killings. The massacre was Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two.
The first person convicted of the gravest charge of genocide by the court, Krstic was sentenced to 46 years in jail. Jokic faces lesser charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The net is gradually tightening around Bosnian Serbs suspected of responsibility for the atrocities at Srebrenica.
Vidoje Blagojevic, who commanded an infantry and engineering brigade in the Bosnian Serb Drina Corps, is to appear in court Thursday to face charges of genocide over the killings.
Blagojevic was seized by NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) troops. But Jokic handed himself in voluntarily after being questioned by U.N. prosecutors last month, his lawyer said.
The tribunal gave no date for Jokic's first court hearing.
According to the indictment against him, Muslim men and boys were shot by firing squad in areas controlled by the Zvornik brigade, part of the Drina Corps, over several months.
``Between about July 11, 1995 and November 1, 1995, Dragan Jokic planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of the organized mass execution and burial of thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys,'' ran the indictment published by the U.N.
CORPSES EXHUMED
The bodies were buried in mass graves but later exhumed and reburied in hidden locations, the indictment alleged.
Zvornik is 30 km (18 miles) from Srebrenica.
Jokic was the seventh Bosnian Serb suspected of war crimes to surrender to the court. About 20 more Bosnian Serbs have been arrested by NATO-led peacekeepers in Bosnia.
But the tribunal's most wanted men, Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, also accused over the Srebrenica massacre as well as the siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, remain free and are believed to be in the Bosnian Serb republic.
``Jokic's surrender is a reminder to all those indicted for war crimes who are still at large that they will not escape justice,'' NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said in Brussels.
``I urge those with guilty consciences to turn themselves in.''
The Bosnian Serb government, glad to avoid the need for another arrest by NATO forces, also welcomed Jokic's surrender.
``The government supports this act by Lieutenant-Colonel Jokic as a contribution in the creation of new atmosphere in relations between the Republika Srpska and the Hague tribunal,'' it said in statement.
PHOTO CAPTION:
The surrender of Lieutenant-Colonel Dragan Jokic comes a day before Colonel Vidoje Blagojevic - seized by Nato forces in the Bosnian Serb republic last week - is due to appear before the tribunal to face genocide charges connected with the massacre.