Bosnian Genocide

"I am not guilty," Radovan Veljovic told the Bosnian state court in Sarajevo on Monday after the charges against him were read out by the prosecutor.

As a former member of the Bosnian Serb Army, he is accused of raping and sexually abusing a Bosniak woman in the Foca area in 1992, in violation of the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians during wartime.

On the 28th anniversary of the closure of the Dretelj detention camp on Tuesday, former detainees recalled the desperate conditions at the wartime facility near Capljina but were unable to hold a commemoration at the site.

An exhibition entitled 'Footsteps of Those Who Did (Not) Cross' opened on Monday at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, displaying the personal belongings of people who were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, as well as items owned by people who survived.

The Bosnian state court has given BIRN a list of 41 people who are wanted for trial and are the subjects of international arrest warrants, many of whom are living in neighbouring Serbia.

On the list are several suspects accused of involvement in the 1995 genocide of Bosniaks from Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces, including former Bosnian Serb Interior Minister Tomislav Kovac.

Mayor of Niksic Marko Kovacevic (right) at a session of parliament. Photo: Parliament of Montenegro.

"After gathering the necessary evidence, the Higher Prosecution in Podgorica filed an indictment, and the High Court in Podgorica will have to confirm it," state prosecutor Lepa Medenica told news website CDM.

Lawyers for former Serbian State Security Service officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic appealed on Monday against the verdict in June which sentenced them both to 12 years in prison for aiding and abetting crimes war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

Boro Milojica's defence lawyer Ranko Dakic told BIRN that an appeal to reduce the former Bosnian Serb Army soldier's 20-year sentence has been rejected by the appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court.

When the trial of a group of Serb fighters accused of the abductions and killings of passengers who were seized from a train in Bosnia during the war in 1993 continues at Belgrade Higher Court next month, there will be one fewer defendant in the dock.

This is the conclusion of the Independent International Commission for the Study of the Suffering of All Nations in the Srebrenica Region in the period 1992-1995, formed by the Government of Republika Srpska.

Relatives of the Bosniaks and Croats killed at the Koricani Cliffs by Bosnian Serb forces will mark the 29th anniversary of the massacre on Saturday by throwing roses into the deep mountain pit where their loved ones' bodies were dumped after they were killed in 1992.