Srebrenica massacre trial begins

BELGRADE - Five Serbs alleged to have killed six Bosnian Muslims while a comrade filmed them have gone on trial, the first Serbian case resulting from the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The five were arrested after images of the killing of the bound and terrified captives were broadcast on Serbian television in June, exploding a culture of denial that had persisted since the end of the 1992-95 Bosnia war.

The video showed camouflaged, armed members of the Scorpions paramilitary group joking, torturing and then shooting the unarmed men in a clearing in the woods, their wrists tied behind their backs with wire.

The video contradicted Belgrade's denial at the time that it was helping ethnic Serbs fighting in Bosnia.

Chief defendant Slobodan Medic, 39, the commander of the Scorpions, said he had first become aware of the killings when the video was aired.

He acknowledged, however, that his units were in the area at the time, to help the Bosnian Serbs.

"Death there was a relative thing, we were all carrying death certificates in our pockets and were just waiting for the date to be filled in," said Medic.

He said he could not know all that his men had done. "I am not chief inspector," he said.

The war crimes prosecutor's office says it has plenty of evidence and witnesses. The defence asked that the video, which was expected to be central to the prosecution case, to be disallowed because it was not the original.

A sixth Scorpion identified in the film is already on trial in Croatia, in a test of whether courts in the ex-Yugoslav states can handle war crimes cases fairly. Bosnia has charged 11 people with the murders of more than 1000 Bosnian Muslim men, in a warehouse near Srebrenica.

The prosecution says the murders took place on July 17, 1995, near the town of Trnovo. That week, Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladic is accused of orchestrating the massacre of 8000 Muslim males after driving them out of Srebrenica.

Outside the Belgrade court, young Serbs with crewcuts, tattoos and leather coats came to support the accused, mingling with mothers of Srebrenica victims in headscarves.

The women, who came from Bosnia for the trial, demanded guilty verdicts.

"We are shaken because we are confronting the murderers of our loved ones. We hope that they will be justly punished," said one woman. "There is taped evidence, where you can see what was done and what they did," added another.

Serbian human rights campaigner Natasa Kandic, who obtained the video from a penitent member of the Scorpions, cross-examined Medic, who denied his group had anything to do with Serbia proper.

The Srebrenica massacre was the worst European atrocity since World War II. It took four days to kill the victims and bulldoze them into graves.

The UN tribunal has charged 19 people for the massacre, six of whom have been jailed. Mladic, wanted for genocide, is still at large.


Band of killers

* The "Scorpions" were formed in the early 1990s.
* They are widely believed to have enjoyed the protection of Serbian state security services.
* The group was active in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war and in Kosovo in the late 1990s.
* Believed to have taken part in the capture of Srebrenica and the killing of up to 8000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995.
* Serb prosecutors are trying to identify between 200 and 400 men who were members of the group throughout its existence.

- REUTERS