Retired Serb general arrested by Bosnia police for 1995 war crimes News
Retired Serb general arrested by Bosnia police for 1995 war crimes

[JURIST] Bosnian police Wednesday arrested retired Serbian General Novack Djukic [press release, in Bosnian] for alleged involvement in a 1995 war crime in which the Republika Srpska Army [UN backgrounder] fired a single artillery shell into the central square of the town of Tuzla. Seventy-one people died as a result of the blast, most between the ages of 18 and 25. The youngest victim was only three years old.

Bosnian prosecutors [official website] will try Djukic in Bosnia's own War Crimes Chamber [HRW backgrounder] in the Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina [official website]. The War Crimes Chamber was set up to alleviate the caseload of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website], and will continue to hear cases as the ICTY winds down in 2010. Reuters has more. B92 has local coverage.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Dreyfus convicted of treason

On December 22, 1894, Jewish French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial trial that prompted worldwide allegations of anti-Semitism. Dreyfus was later cleared. Learn more about the case of Alfred Dreyfus and read an English translation of the famous public letter J'Accuse...! by novelist and Dreyfus partisan Emile Zola.

US passed Embargo Act, banning foreign trade

On December 22, 1807, the Embargo Act was passed at the urging of US President Thomas Jefferson. The act barred trade with any foreign nations in an effort to avoid American entry into the Napoleonic Wars of Europe. However, the act proved unenforceable and was replaced with the Non-Intercourse Act, which barred trade with France and Great Britain. Learn more about the Embargo Act of 1807 from Monticello.org