List names Serbs suspected of role in Srebrenica massacre

SERBIA & MONTENEGRO: The Bosnian government has identified almost 20,000 ethnic Serbs allegedly involved in the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995.

More than 17,000 of those accused of playing some role in the slaughter are identified by name on a confidential list that has been given to Lord Paddy Ashdown, the international high representative for Bosnia, and state prosecutors in the former Yugoslav republic.

The list includes people who served in the police and armed forces during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, as well as civilians whose work with transport, communications and logistics facilitated the worst massacre in Europe since the second World War.

The report was compiled by a multi-ethnic Bosnian panel at the request of the international community and includes those who planned, ordered and carried out the massacre, but refrains from placing responsibility for certain crimes on specific people.

"The report . . . represents a serious attempt to comprehensively catalogue all persons implicated in the crimes in the Srebrenica area in the period from 11-19 July 1995," Lord Ashdown's office said in a statement, calling it a sign that the Bosnian Serbs had "finally . . . taken their obligations seriously".

The statement added: "By breaching the wall of silence that has surrounded these events for almost a decade, those who lost loved ones have an opportunity to get the answers they have sought since July 1995 and to see justice served."

Lord Ashdown's office also said it expects prosecutors to pay swiftest attention to allegations against officials still serving in the Bosnian administration; the Serb-run region of Bosnia has said that as many as 900 suspects may still be in official posts.

The so-called United Nations safe haven at Srebrenica fell to Gen Ratko Mladic, when his Bosnian Serb forces overran outnumbered and outgunned Dutch peacekeepers, who were charged with protecting Muslim refugees who had gathered at the town.

Gen Mladic and his political ally, Radovan Karadzic, are still on the run a decade after the atrocity, and the European Union has told Bosnia and Serbia that their hopes for membership will not be realised until both men are handed to the UN tribunal at The Hague.

The list includes the names of 15 members of a Serb paramilitary unit called the Scorpions, who were shown in footage broadcast on national television in June apparently torturing and murdering Muslim civilians from Srebrenica.