Bosnia Acquits Serb Ex-Policemen of Srebrenica Genocide Charges

The Bosnian state court found Miodrag Josipovic, Branimir Tesic, Dragomir Vasic, Danilo Zoljic and Radomir Pantic not guilty on Monday of participation in the partial extermination of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in July 1995.

"The prosecution has not proved that the defendants had the intent to commit extermination," said presiding judge Minka Kreho.

At the time of the Srebrenica genocide, Josipovic was chief of the police's Public Security Station in the town of Bratunac, Tesic was deputy commander of the police station in Bratunac, Vasic was chief of the Public Security Centre in the town of Zvornik, Zoljic was commander of special police units and Pantic was a company commander of a special police unit.

More than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb military and police forces in July 1995 after the Bosnian Serb Army seized the UN-protected 'safe zone' of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia - a crime which has been classified by international court verdicts as genocide.

Vasic was acquitted of committing genocide and the other four defendants of assisting the commission of genocide.

Judge Kreho said the prosecution did not present a single piece of evidence linking Vasic with a joint criminal enterprise to commit the crime.

"Merely mentioning his contacts with high-ranking officials of the civilian, military and police authorities is not in itself a sufficient fact for this chamber," Kreho said.

She also said that no evidence had been presented to prove that Vasic was aware of the key perpetrators' intent to forcibly remove Bosniak civilians from Potocari near Srebrenica and to execute thousands of men.

Kreho said that the prosecution attempted to prove the defendant was aware of it because of his...

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