Bosnia Arrests Serb Ex-Soldier for Wartime Rape of Prisoners

The Bosnian state prosecution announced on Monday that Borislav Gligorevic was arrested on May 26 while attempting to enter Bosnia and Herzegovina from Serbia at the Karakaj border crossing.

The prosecution said that he is suspected, as a member of the Bosnian Serb Army and the Bijeli Orlovi (White Eagles) unit of the Territorial Defence force in the city of Zvornik, of raping two women civilians in Liplje in the Zvornik municipality.

It alleged that he committed the crimes "while a number of Bosniak civilians were being unlawfully held in detention in the village of Liplje while being abused multiple times and a number of women were being sexually abused".

He and others allegedly went to the houses where the detainees were being held and raped two women who were threatened with violence and death.

After the start of the war in April 1992, a school in Liplje and two private houses nearby were turned into one of the most notorious detention facilities in the Zvornik municipality, where according to testimonies from survivors, around 460 people were imprisoned, a BIRN investigation found in 2020.

Men and women who were detained there were tortured, raped and killed.

Another man suspected of committing war crimes in Liplje, Rade Grujic, an alleged member of the Snagovo Company of the Territorial Defence force in Zvornik, was arrested in February this year. He is now on trial for raping a Bosniak woman in Liplje.