[JURIST] A Bosnian immigrant admitted in a US district court Wednesday that he lied to US immigration officers [JURIST report] about his participation in ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian War when he allegedly participated in the 1995 killings of 1,200 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. Marko Boskic currently lives in the Boston area and has not been formally charged with war crimes related to the Srebrenica massacre [PBS backgrounder; JURIST news archive], but has been charged with five counts of lying [JURIST report] to US immigration officials. Boskic told the court that he was threatened by Serb separatists that if he did not participate in the killings, he would be executed.

Boskic pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to the charges and has petitioned the court to suppress his self-incriminating statements, which he made during an August 2004 meeting with federal officials. The immigrant said he admitted his involvement in the massacre, the worst single massacre in Europe since World World II, because he thought the US investigators were conducting a probe into high-ranking Serbian military officials. Final arguments will be heard on Boskic's motion to suppress on May 1. AP has more.