Bosnian Prosecutor Indicts Almost 20 For War Crimes

One person was indicted for crimes against humanity for attacks on villages in the Vlasenica region.

The Prosecutor-General's Office of Bosnia-Herzegovina has indicted more than a dozen people for crimes against the civilian population and against prisoners of war committed during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia.

Under the indictments filed on December 30, 15 people were accused of committing war crimes in the Banja Luka Military-Investigative Prison, known as Mali Logor, for "illegal imprisonment, beatings, detention in inhumane conditions, abuse, sexual abuse, and other inhuman acts."

The offenses "were committed against dozens of victims, civilians and war veterans. Prisoners of Bosniak and Croat nationality, among whom there were also women and elderly people, and the beatings also resulted in death," the Prosecutor-General's Office said.

The same day, the office indicted one person for crimes against humanity for participating in attacks on villages inhabited by Bosniak civilians in the Vlasenica region.

It also indicted a Bosniak army security officer for his role in keeping "illegally imprisoned" ethnic Serbs behind bars and participating in their torture, and an ethnic Croat who allegedly participated in the execution of two civilians -- a father and son -- in the Maglaj region.

The suspect from Vlasenica is now living in Serbia, the office said, while the suspect from the Maglaj region currently resides in Croatia.

More than 100,000 people died in the 1992-95 Bosnian War -- which was marked by ethnic cleansing and brutality -- that ended with the signing by Serbian, Croatian, and Bosniak leaders of a U.S.-mediated peace in Dayton, Ohio.

The Dayton accords created two highly autonomous entities, the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, that share some joint institutions.

The country is governed and administered along ethnic lines established by the agreement, with a weak and often dysfunctional central government.