Bosnian Serb Enters Plea in 1995 Killings

A Bosnian Serb army colonel pleaded not guilty Thursday at a U.N. war crimes tribunal here to charges of crimes against humanity and genocide stemming from the 1995 massacre of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica.

Col. Vidoje Blagojevic, a former commander in the eastern Bosnian town of Bratunac, is charged with eight counts of war crimes in the July 1995 genocide of Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. He is the 13th person to be charged with genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

More than 7,000 people are believed to have been killed and 30,000 were forcibly transferred out of the Muslim enclave during a weeklong crackdown on the civilian population at the end of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s 3 1/2-year war.

Blagojevic, 51, was still active in the Bosnian Serb army when he was arrested by British troops serving in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization a week ago. At his arraignment, he pleaded not guilty to charges of genocide, complicity to commit genocide, extermination, murder, persecution, deportation and inhumane acts.

He was secretly indicted alongside Bosnian Serb Gen. Radislav Krstic in November 1998. Krstic was convicted of genocide and sentenced this month.

Another Serb officer indicted in the Srebrenica massacre, Lt. Col. Dragan Jokic, surrendered to the tribunal’s office in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka on Wednesday and was transferred to the U.N. detention unit near The Hague. No date has been set for his first hearing.

During Blagojevic’s 10-minute hearing Thursday, Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte requested that Jokic and Blagojevic be tried alongside another Srebrenica suspect, Col. Dragan Obrenovic, who was handed over to the tribunal in April.

Blagojevic’s indictment describes how Bosnian Serb soldiers, allegedly under his command, slaughtered hundreds of Muslim prisoners in the town of Kravica.