Hague Tribunal

Minister Vulin: "General Lazarevis is a hero"

Aleksandar Vulin has said that Serbia was "no longer a country that turns its head from its generals-heroes, but one that is proud of them."

Sonja Karadzic-Jovicevic, who is already a MP in the Republika Srpska entity's parliament, has been tipped for its vice-presidency by the Serb Democratic Party, SDS, which was founded by her father.

Former Yugoslav Army (VS) General Vladimir Lazarevic has been released after serving two thirds of his 14-year prison sentence.

Lazarevic, who was put on trial and convicted by the Hague Tribunal, arrived at the airport in Nis, southern Serbia, at about 14:00 CET on Thursday.

Rasim Ljajic described on Tuesday as "completely unexpected and surprising" the Hague Tribunal's decision to disclose arrest warrants for three SRS officials.

Belgrade has not yet responded to the Hague Tribunal’s request for three Serbian Radical Party officials to be arrested for allegedly threatening witnesses at their leader Vojislav Seselj’s war crimes trial.

Serbian historian Milos Kovic told Ratko Mladic’s trial at the Hague Tribunal that the Bosnian conflict was a secessionist civil war in which all three forces carried out ethnic cleansing.

The cooperation between the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution and the Hague Tribunal "is proceeding at a highly professional level."

This is what Serbia's War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic and Serge Brammertz, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), said during a meeting in Belgrade on Friday

The Belgrade-based Higher Court ruled on Thursday that there was not enough evidence to convict Pop Kostic of torturing and ill-treating Bosniak civilian Muhamed Bukvic, who was imprisoned in detention camp Luka in Brcko, Bosnia in Herzegovina.

"There is no reliable evidence that the accused Boban Pop Kostic committed a war crime against civilians," presiding judge Vera Vukotic said.

Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska, withdrew from parliament on Wednesday the draft legislation which would have granted benefits to the entity's founders, senior officials and MPs who held office between 1991 and 1996, including Karadzic.

Dodik said that the law was withdrawn because "unprincipled" opposition.

An exhibition presenting the most important evidence from the Hague Tribunal’s Srebrenica genocide trials opened in Belgrade as part of events to mark the 20th anniversary of the massacres.