Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect for Hague court

A top Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect, indicted by a UN tribunal for some of the worst atrocities in the Bosnian war, will today be transferred to the court, police said.

Sredoje Lukic surrendered to Bosnian Serb authorities on Tuesday after hiding since the late 1990s. He was indicted by the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2000 for crimes against humanity.

“Lukic will be transferred to The Hague during the day and he will be accompanied by the Bosnian Serb Police Minister, Darko Matijasevic,” Matijasevic’s office said in a statement.

Sredoje’s cousin, Milan Lukic, also charged with war crimes during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, was arrested in Argentina in August and is awaiting extradition to the UN tribunal.

The two were members of the notorious Bosnian Serb paramilitary group called the Avengers that fought Bosnian Muslims in eastern Bosnia during the war, according to the war crimes indictment against them.

They organised the paramilitary group that, between May 1992 and October 1994, “committed, planned, instigated and ordered the executions” of Bosnian Muslims on the territory of Visegrad and elsewhere in the Bosnian Serb-controlled territory, the indictment says.

Sredoje Lukic is charged with cruel and inhumane acts against non-Serbs, persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, crimes against humanity as well as unlawful detention, humiliation, terrorising and psychological abuse of Bosnian Muslims.

In June 1992, according to the indictment, the Lukic cousins and others led seven Bosnian Muslim men to the Drina River and forced them to line up along its bank before opening fire on the men with automatic weapons, killing five.

Also that month, the Lukics and others drove to a furniture factory in Visegrad, where they forced Bosnian Muslim men to go to the bank of the river by the factory. They then shot and killed seven of them, the indictment says.

The two top war crimes fugitives, wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and military commander General Ratko Mladic, remain at large.