radio free europe
March 04, 2011
By Nenad Pejic
On March 3 news broke that retired Bosnian Army General Jovan Divjak had been arrested in Vienna by Austrian police acting on an Interpol warrant issued by Serbia.
By Nenad Pejic
On March 3 news broke that retired Bosnian Army General Jovan Divjak had been arrested in Vienna by Austrian police acting on an Interpol warrant issued by Serbia.
The general is accused of involvement in an incident that happened on Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo on May 3, 1992. Gunfire began as Yugoslav Army units were withdrawing from the city. Serbian officials say as many as 40 soldiers died, while Bosnia says 4 soldiers were killed.
General Divjak was at the time the deputy commander of the Bosnian Territorial Defense and had remained in Sarajevo. An ethnic Serb, he was one of the most popular people in Bosnia and widely regarded as a deeply principled man.
Concerted Policy
Divjak's arrest is not an isolated incident but part of a concerted policy by Belgrade.On March 1, 2010, British authorities arrested Ejub Ganic, a former member of the Bosnian Presidency. They were acting on the same sort of Serbian arrest warrant for alleged crimes committed during the Dobrovoljacka Street incident.
Later that year in July, a British court released Ganic and ruled that no evidence against him had been provided and the Serbian warrant was politically motivated.
In 2007, Serbia issued a warrant for Ilija Jurisic, a Bosnian Army officer accused of war crimes allegedly committed during the withdrawal of Yugoslav Army units from Tuzla. A court in Serbia convicted Jurisic of improper battlefield conduct and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. In October 2010, a Serbian appeals court overturned the conviction, released Jurisic from detention, and ordered a new trial
On the same day that Divjak was arrested in Vienna -- March 3, 2011 -- a Serbian warrant for former Croatian soldier Tihomir Purda, who was accused of involvement in war crimes in Vukovar, was annulled by Serbian war crimes prosecutors. After speaking with 44 witnesses, officials found no evidence that Purda committed a crime. Purda, who had been arrested in Bosnia in January on a similar Serbian warrant, was immediately released.
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