(ANSA-AP) - SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Bosnia's war
crimes court on Monday acquitted the wartime commander of
Srebrenica, who was accused of committing atrocities against
Serbs during the 1992-95 Balkan conflict.
The acquittal of Naser Oric immediately prompted anger from
Serbian leaders, with Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin
saying the court ruling "threatens security, trust and
reconciliation in the whole of the Balkans."
Oric was accused of war crimes against three Serb prisoners
of war who were murdered in villages around the Bosnian town of
Srebrenica in the early days of the conflict. A panel of judges
presiding over the trial ruled Monday the prosecution did not
present evidence proving the case against Oric. Oric is seen as
a hero by many Muslim Bosnians for his role in defending
Srebrenica, where Serb forces massacred some 8,000 Muslim men
and boys in 1995. The killings, the worst single atrocity in
Europe since World War II, is the only episode of Bosnia's war
to be defined as genocide by two U.N. courts. Serbs continue to
claim the 1995 Srebrenica slaughter was an act of revenge by
uncontrolled troops because they say soldiers under Oric's
command killed thousands of Serbs in the villages surrounding
the eastern town. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said "it is
clear that we will have to fight for justice ourselves." Still,
he urged Serbs not to "utter a hard word against Bosniak
neighbors so that we build friendship with them, and build a
future together with them." Bosnian Serb political leader
Milorad Dodik said that Oric's acquittal showed there was no
justice for Serbs. He called on Serb judges and prosecutors to
abandon their posts in Bosnia's top court and prosecution office
and urged all Bosnian Serb political representatives "to gather
around the cause of declaring the (two institutions)
illegitimate." Oric had previously been tried by a U.N. war
crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he was also acquitted in
2008. The Bosnian war pitted the country's three main ethnic
factions - Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims - against each
other after Bosnia split from what was then Yugoslavia. More
than 100,000 people were killed in the conflict before a peace
deal was brokered in 1995. ___ AP Writer Dusan Stojanovic
contributed from Belgrade, Serbia.
SABINA NIKSIC/
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