The New York Times Bosnian President Defends a Muslim General By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: August 10, 2006 SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aug. 9 (AP) — Bosnia’s president, Sulejman Tihic, on Wednesday rejected accusations that a wartime Muslim commander had committed atrocities against Serbs, saying that Serbian and Bosnian officials should instead capture the two suspects most wanted on war crimes.
Wide-ranging coverage of Russia and the former Soviet republics, updated by The Times's Moscow bureau. He was responding to a statement issued Tuesday by the Serbian government in Belgrade, demanding that the Muslim commander, Atif Dudakovic, a retired Bosnian Army general, be brought to justice. Bosnian Serb officials said they would press charges against him. A recently released video appears to show General Dudakovic ordering the destruction of Bosnian Serb homes in 1995 in western Bosnia. General Dudakovic said the statements attributed to him on the video were fabricated since they appeared as subtitles on Serbian television stations. The recordings, made in daylight apparently with a hand-held camera, showed Bosnian Muslim soldiers and soldiers from neighboring Croatia harassing and attacking convoys of Bosnian Serb refugees. The refugees were fleeing from a Croatian military offensive in August 1995 to retake contested territories from Bosnian Serb rebels. The soldiers were seen yelling at Serbs, pushing them around and executing one who had his hands raised in the air. The troops were also seen burning Bosnian Serb houses. They were shouting, “Burn them all.” More than 200,000 Bosnian Serbs fled from the Croatian offensive in August 1995. “I reject any accusation against Atif Dudakovic and the Fifth Corps of the Bosnian Army, who defended their country against aggression and destruction,” President Tihic said in a statement. Bosnia’s state prosecutor’s office said it was examining the tape. Mr. Tihic said while he supported the work of the prosecutor’s office, Bosnian Serb and Serbian officials were putting it under unnecessary pressure with their statements. Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor said copies of the tape were also handed over to colleagues in Croatia, as well as to the United Nations war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia, in The Hague. Mr. Tihic said Serbian officials should instead focus on capturing the two most-wanted war crimes suspects — Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime leader, and his top general, Ratko Mladic. More Articles in International » =============== Group Moderator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] page at http://magazine.sorabia.net for more informations about current situation in Serbia http://www.sorabia.net Slusajte GLAS SORABIJE nas talk internet-radio (Serbian Only) http://radio.sorabia.net Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sorabia/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
