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Eight suspects arrested for 1995 involvement in Srebrenica massacre that killed 1,000

Bosnian Serb militiamen who violated a U.N.-designated protection area and killed 1,000 men inside a warehouse were arrested by Serbian and Bosnian prosecutors.

By Elizabeth Shim
Members of the United States Secret Service during President Clinton's 1996 visit to U.S. troops in Bosnia. Eight suspects in the most violent massacre during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia were arrested and tried in Belgrade court on Wednesday. File photo by Mike Marucci/UPI
Members of the United States Secret Service during President Clinton's 1996 visit to U.S. troops in Bosnia. Eight suspects in the most violent massacre during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia were arrested and tried in Belgrade court on Wednesday. File photo by Mike Marucci/UPI | License Photo

BELGRADE, Serbia, March 20 (UPI) -- Serbian and Bosnian prosecutors have arrested eight militiamen who were responsible for killing thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995.

Police arrested seven of the eight suspects on Wednesday for an act of genocide during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

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The eighth suspect eluded law enforcement during a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday but was eventually apprehended, reported Deutsche Welle. All suspects were members of a special brigade of the Bosnian Serb police, said Vladimir Vukcevic, the chief Serbian war crimes prosecutor.

The arrests have been followed by a trial in a Belgrade Court, in a city where the war and its consequences are still a sensitive matter for many Serbians.

One of the suspects, Nedeljko Milidragović, otherwise known as "Nedjo the Butcher" later became a successful businessman in Serbia, reported The Guardian.

The eight men were responsible for the mass murder of approximately 1,000 men at a warehouse outside Srebrenica, a small town in eastern Bosnia that was designated a safe haven by the United Nations. In July 1995 the massacre brought an end to that international agreement -- and resulted in the most violent atrocity in Europe since the Nazi invasion of Europe.

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Deutsche Welle reported the arrest of the eight suspects is a watershed development that involved cooperation between former foes Bosnia and Serbia.

In total, Serb militiamen murdered more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims after violating the U.N.-designated protection area.

The Guardian reported the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, responsible for factional violence during the 1992-95 war, are on trial at the international war crime tribunal in The Hague.

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