Genocide Charge For Bosnian Serb Reinstated

UN War Crimes Tribunal Reinstates Genocide Charge For Bosnian Serb

The Appeals Chamber of the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today reinstated a charge of genocide against a Bosnian Serb former government minister facing trial for his role in the deaths of hundreds of Croats and Muslims and the forcible relocation of thousands of others during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s.

Five judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ( http://www.un.org/icty/latest/index.htm ICTY), sitting in The Hague, agreed unanimously that the Trial Chamber had erred last November when it acquitted Radoslav Brdjanin of one count of genocide.

Mr. Brdjanin, 56, also faces charges of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

The indictment alleges Mr. Brdjanin, as a prominent member of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), played a leading role in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, or the permanent removal of the non-Serb population from certain areas of Bosnia during 1991-92.

In 1992 Mr. Brdjanin became the President of the Autonomous Region of Krajina's Crisis Staff and later served as a minister and acting vice-president in the Republika Srpska government.

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