Bosnian Genocide

The Bosnian state court in Sarajevo has confirmed the indictment charging Slavko Puhalic, Zeljko Rudak, Dragan Skrbic, Rajko Damjanovic and Dragomir Saponja with crimes against prisoners held at the Bosnian Serb-run Trnopolje, Keraterm and Omarska detention camps during the war in 1992.

Body is assumed to belong to a Serb who went missing in 1993 in the Hadzici area.

Former Bosnian Serb military policeman Momcilo Tesic was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his participation in the shooting of 17 Bosniaks from Srebrenica in July 1995.

Presenting its closing statement to the Bosnian state court on Friday, the prosecution said it had proved during the trial that Momcilo Tesic, a former military policeman with the Bosnian Serb Army's Vlasenica Brigade, is guilty of participating in the murders of 21 Bosniak men from Srebrenica in July 1995.

The Bosnian state court has rejected a prosecution appeal confirmed a verdict acquitting Miodrag Josipovic, Branimir Tesic, Dragomir Vasic, Danilo Zoljic and Radomir Pantic of participation in the partial extermination of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in July 1995, the men's lawyers told BIRN.

The court decision comes after Petkovic, who is now in Serbia, was due to enter his plea on June 16, but failed to appear in court. The State Court said that he had also failed to attend an earlier hearing on March 10 this year.

MPs in the Albanian parliament voted unanimously on Thursday to support a resolution honouring the victims of the Srebrenica genocide, ahead of the anniversary next week of the July 1995 massacres of some 8,000 Bosniak men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces.

The resolution also declares July 11, when annual commemorations are held in Bosnia, as a day of remembrance in Albania.

It commemorates the issuing of a decree in May 1992 by the wartime Bosnian Serb authorities in Prijedor, which was announced on Radio Prijedor, telling all non-Serbs to mark their houses with white flags or bedsheets and to wear white armbands when going outside - an incident that has become symbolic of the deadly campaign of persecution in the area at the time.

The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Friday confirmed a first-instance verdict sentencing Senad Dzananovic to 11 years in prison and Edin Gadzo to five years for crimes against Serb civilians in the Alipasino Polje neighbourhood of Sarajevo.

The court said that the defendants' appeals had been rejected as "unfounded".

The 'Mother's Scarf' art installation, part of the Srebrenica Heroines initiative, will open next month at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre as part of commemorations to mark the 27th anniversary of the 1995 genocide of Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces.