BOSNIAN Serb leaders said yesterday they will bar United Nations investigators from exhuming graves linked to the fall of Srebrenica, alleging that Muslim Croat authorities were blocking Serb probes of graves elsewhere.
The Bosnian Serb cabinet said it was "forced" to take the decision and accused the MuslimCroat federation of obstructing Serb investigations of suspected mass grave sites, the Bosnian Serb newsagency reported.
"We were forced to make this decision because of growing pressure from the public, which will no longer allow the search to go on for alleged mass graves in Srebrenica while at the same time work is stopped on the exhumation of the bodies of Serb soldiers and civilians buried in mass graves in the (Muslim Croat) federation," it quoted the Bosnian Serb Prime Minister, Mr Gojko Klickovic.
Experts sent by the UN war crimes tribunal have been examining mass graves on Serb territory believed to contain Muslim victims killed by conquering Serb forces last summer following the fall of the eastern Srebrenica enclave.
Mr Klickovic's statement apparently referred to Serb media reports this week that Croat police in western Bosnia have tried to obstruct a Serb exhumation of a suspected mass grave site near the town of Glamoc.
The Bosnian Serb leadership in Pale, outside Sarajevo, had asked for an "urgent meeting" to discuss the matter with the International High Representative to Bosnia, Mr Carl Bildt, SRNA reported.
A spokesman for Mr Bildt in Sarajevo said the High Representative's office had yet to receive any such formal communication from Pale.
The UN war crimes tribunal has charged Dr Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb political chief, and Serb army commander, Gen Ratko Mladic, for orchestrating the slaughter of thousands of Muslim men from Srebrenica.
. The Bosnian Serb republic said yesterday it had brought criminal charges against the Bosnian Muslim President, Mr Alija Izetbegovic, and that proceedings against him were going on at a court in Serb held Banja Luka.
Charges against Mr Izetbegovic and we're waiting for (UN) tribunal investigators to come and investigate on site," the Bosnian Serb deputy justice minister, Mr Goran Neskovic told reporters outside the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Mr Neskovic, with justice minister Mr Marko Arsovic, and a Serb lawyer, Mr Igor Pantelic, on the Bosnian Serb republic's first official visit to The Hague for talks with the UN criminal tribunal.