[JURIST] Serbian war crimes prosecutors said Tuesday that five people have been charged [press release, PDF] with committing a wartime massacre during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s, with 10 more still under investigation in Bosnia. The massacre occurred in 1993, when the five allegedly abducted 20 people from a train in eastern Bosnia and robbed and killed them. The group targeted only non-Serbs in their attack. The prosecutor’s office called the indictment “the first step in reaching truth and justice for the victims and their families.” The country’s war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, has been criticized [b92 report] by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, saying that he is an organ of the state and “has not been appointed to only attack Serbia.” His past criticisms of the prosecutor prompted an unsuccessful petition [b92 report] by opposition deputies to dismiss the president.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST backgrounder] and the Balkan States continue to prosecute those accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s that left more than 100,000 people dead and millions displaced. Last month the the ICTY ruled [JURIST report] that Serbia and Croatia did not commit genocide against one another’s citizens during the 1990s war. In January the ICTY upheld [JURIST report] the genocide convictions of two Bosnian Serbs during the 1995 Srebenica massacre. In July a Dutch court found the government responsible for 300 deaths [JURIST report] in the Srebrenica massacre. Last January the appeals chamber for the ICTY upheld [JURIST report] the criminal convictions of four Serbian senior officials stemming from the Bosnian Civil War [JURIST news archive]. The ICTY was created [text, PDF] in 1993 by UN Resolution 827 to adjudicate the alleged war crimes perpetrated in the region of the former Yugoslavia since 1991.