1st War Crimes Suspects Arrested Who Allegedly Attacked Serbs

The investigation of war crimes in the former Yugoslav federation has led to the first arrests of suspects whose victims were allegedly Serbs.

Two of three men arrested Monday in Germany and Austria are accused of crimes against Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague confirmed Tuesday. One is being held in Vienna, and the other is in custody in Munich, Germany.

Christian Chartier, a spokesman for the U.N.-established court, said the arrests show the court is not biased. Bosnian Serbs have accused the tribunal of singling out their soldiers.

The arrests “fully illustrate and give substance to [the tribunal’s] policy of investigating and indicting anyone” accused of crimes, regardless of nationality and ethnic background, Chartier said.

Gerd Felsenstein, a senior official in the Austrian Interior Ministry, identified the suspect in Vienna as Zdravko Mucic, 40, a Croatian citizen.

The ministry said Mucic is suspected of killing or helping to kill ethnic Serbs in his capacity as commander of prison camps in the southern Bosnian towns of Celebic and Konjic in 1992.

The ministry said Mucic had lived in Vienna for some time.

The man arrested in Munich was identified only as Zejnil D., 47.

Miroslav Toholj, a Bosnian Serb official, said the suspect’s full name is Zejnil Delalic-Dedo and that he is a Muslim who lived in Germany before the war but returned to Bosnia when it started, the Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA reported.

Toholj, as quoted by SRNA, alleged that Delalic-Dedo was close to the Bosnian leadership and that he killed many civilians in Konjic and raped Serbian women.

The third man arrested Monday--also in Germany--is a 28-year-old Bosnian Serb accused of beating to death five inmates and maltreating others in a prison camp in Bosnia in 1992.