[JURIST] Former Bosnian Army general Naser Oric [JURIST news archive] pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of war crimes he allegedly committed against prisoners of war in 1992. Prosecutors charged [JURIST report] Oric in August for his alleged involvement in the killing of three Bosnian Serb prisoners of war in the villages of Zalazje, Kunjerac and Lolici. Upon being charged, Oric was arrested at the border between Switzerland and France and extradited to his home country of Bosnian and Herzegovina (BiH). The charges against Oric come after he was acquitted [JURIST report] of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] in 2008. The trial is expected to begin [Balkan Transitional Justice report] in 30 to 60 days.

The ICTY and the Balkan States continue to prosecute those accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity that left more than 100,000 people dead and millions displaced during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. In April the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH indicted [JURIST report] 10 former Bosnian-Serb soldiers for war crimes committed during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. Also in April Bosnian prosecutors indicted three men [JURIST report] for crimes committed against more than 300 Serb civilians between April 1992 and July 1993. In February the International Court of Justice ruled [JURIST report] that Serbia and Croatia did not commit genocide against one another’s citizens during the 1990s war.