Bosnian War

That year, President George W. Bush was running for re-election and opposed military intervention in Bosnia. His top foreign policy officials, including Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, were traditional "realists", concerned with America's national interests and opposed to interventions where those interests were not at stake.

High Representative Christian Schmidt, who is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the peace deal that ended the Bosnian war, warned on Friday that he could intervene using his sweeping powers if politicians in the Federation entity do not find a way to implement election results and form a government in the entity.

The Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre on Monday criticised the Belgrade Court of Appeals' decision to reduce former police inspector Osman Osmanovic's war crimes sentence for prisoner abuse from five to three-and-a-half years in prison.

Vinko Pandurevic, wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb Army's Zvornik Brigade, told Belgrade Higher Court on Monday that Milenko Zivanovic, who commanded the Bosnian Serb Army's Drina Corps, did not run the Krivaja 95 operation in July 1995 which ended in the massacres of thousands of Bosniaks from Srebrenica.

The Bosnian state court told BIRN that it has written to the Turkish authorities seeking the extradition of Sakib Mahmuljin, who was jailed for eight years for failing to stop Middle Eastern volunteer fighters mistreating and murdering captured Serb soldiers, medical staff and civilians, but failed to appear to start serving his sentence.

The Bosnian Defence Ministry told BIRN that it is planning to invest 540,000 Bosnian marks, some 270,000 euros, over the next three years on rebuilding part of the former Heliodrom detention camp in Mostar as the Military Museum of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Three war victims' associations on Monday urged Bosnia and Herzegovina's top international official, High Representative Christian Schmidt, to intervene to remove Lidija Bradara as president of the Bosniak and Croat-dominated Federation entity over her links to a war criminal who she called a "friend", N1 TV reported.

Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic urged the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Tuesday to reverse the verdict sentencing them to 12 years in prison each and acquit them of aiding and abetting Serb fighting units that committed crimes in the Bosanski Samac area during the Bosnian war in 1992.

Franko Simatovic (right) and Jovica Stanisic in court in June 2017. Photo: EPA/Michael Kooren/Reuters pool.

The prosecution will then present its own appeal against the verdict on Wednesday, urging the UN court to convict the defendants of other wartime crimes of which they were initially acquitted and impose longer sentences.

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