Valentine Inzko

The Bosnian state court on Monday ordered Milomir Savcic, the wartime commander of the 65th Protective Motorised Regiment of the Bosnian Serb Army's Main Headquarters, to be remanded in custody for breaching a court order prohibiting him from speaking publicly about issues related to the charges against him, his lawyer told BIRN.

A hearing in the trial of four former Bosnian Serb police officers accused of persecuting Bosniak civilians in the Vlasenica area during wartime was postponed on Wednesday because defence lawyers said they did not know how far they could go in defending their clients in light of legislative changes banning the denial of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Bosnian Serb political representatives begin a boycott of state institutions on Tuesday, which will effectively prevent them from functioning, in a protest against the imposition of a ban on genocide and war crimes denial.

The announcement on Friday of a ban on genocide and war crimes denial by High Representative Valentine Inzko, the international official who oversees implementation of the peace deal that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war, was hailed by representatives of survivors of the Srebrenica gecocide.