Bosnian War

The Republika Srpska Interior Ministry said on Monday that it has shelved amendments that envisaged the establishment of the new reservist police force, after coming under criticism from Bosniak war victims' groups and from Bosnia and Herzegovina's Western allies.

Robert Kovacic, a former member of the Croatian Defence Council wanted for war crimes, was arrested last month in the United States on a warrant issued by Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is now awaiting an extradition hearing in a US court in July.

Kovacic, now 66, was arrested in Roanoke, Virginia on May 16. He is currently in custody in the US and his extradition is pending.

June 19 is marked each year by the United Nations as the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict in an attempt to raise awareness of the need to put an end to conflict-related sexual violence, and to honour the victims.

The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Friday raised former Croatian Defence Council brigade commander Mensur Djakic's sentence from two to eight years in prison.

Tomislav Kovac, who was deputy interior minister in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity in July 1995, when the Kravica massacre happened, told Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday that Ljubisa Beara, who at the time was the security chief of the Main Headquarters of the Bosnian Serb Army, was to blame for the killings.

Representatives of former wartime prisoners in the southern town of Stolac said that the anniversary march on Thursday organised by Bosnia and Herzegovina's main Croat party, the Croatian Democratic Union, sent a "dangerous message".

A spokesperson for Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that the German Chancellor was not familiar with the nationalist song that was performed at the Croatian Democratic Union rally that she attended on Saturday, and was not informed about the content of the event's musical programme in advance.

A hilltop site in Sarajevo's Sedrenik neighbourhood from which Bosnian Serb forces fired on the city during the wartime siege has been turned into a forest park which opened to the public on Friday.

The project was funded by Turkish General Directorate of Forestry and supported by other Turkish institutions and Sarajevo's Stari Grad municipality, in which the new park is located.

Zagreb County Court on Tuesday handed down a first-instance verdict convicting former Bosnian Serb Army officer Dane Lukajic of physically abusing prisoners at the Manjaca camp during wartime, and sentenced him to six years in prison, local media reported.

The verdict was made public on Thursday after the prosecution and defence issued their closing statements on Monday.

The Constitutional Court on Tuesday rejected Nihad Bojadzic's appeal against verdicts under which he was sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison for crimes committed in 1993 during the war in Jablanica and in the village of Trusina, near Konjic.

The Constitutional Court described Bojadzic's appeal as "unfounded".