In Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague said on Thursday that it has rejected a request to introduce new evidence about the Srebrenica massacres and the wartime siege of Sarajevo at appeal hearings in the trial of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic.

When the first barricades went up in Sarajevo at the start of the Bosnian war in 1992, some of the Bosniaks living in Kucice, a village near the town of Hadzici, not far from the capital, fled their homes in fear.

Croatian media reported that Split county court found former Croatian Defence Council fighters Marinko Maric and Zeljko Rodin guilty of war crimes against Bosniak civilians and prisoners of war held at detention camps in the Western Herzegovina area from July to September 1993.

According to a judgment handed down in a trial at the Hague Tribunal, there was no direct combat in Susanj on June 8, 1993. Former Bosnian Army officers also deny fighting in Susanj. But domestic courts have said that there were at least nine civilian deaths that day, and almost three decades later, relatives of the victims are still waiting for the perpetrators to face justice.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague said on Monday that it has decided not to grant early release to Radoslav Brdjanin, who is serving a 30-year sentence for committing crimes against humanity during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After Bosnian Serb representatives walked out of state-level institutions in the country on Wednesday, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik warned on Thursday that they were now on a path towards "leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina".

Milomir Savcic, the president of the Veterans' Organisation of Republika Srpska, pleaded not guilty at the Bosnian state court on Monday to assisting the commission of genocide in July 1995.

"This is a totally fictional indictment. I do not feel guilty. I plead not guilty," he said.

The Bosnian prosecution on Wednesday called on the state court to convict ex-soldiers Branko Cigoja, Zeljko Todic, Sasa Boskic and Milorad Glamocak of the murders of 28 Bosniak and Croat civilians in Oborci, near the town of Donji Vakuf, on September 13, 1995.

Families of victims, Bosnian politicians and ordinary Sarajevans gathered to lay flowers and pay tributes on Wednesday at the site of the Markale market shelling on the 26th anniversary of the deadly attack during the siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces.

BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina on Monday begins its 'Forgotten Victims' campaign, which intends to enable victims of unprosecuted war crimes and their families to speak about what they went through and draw public and judicial attention to violations that have still not been prosecuted.