(22 Jan 1998) English/Nat
A Bosnian Serb genocide suspect, Goran Jelisic, accused of killing dozens of Muslims in 1992 arrived at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal's detention unit in the Hague on Thursday following his arrest by NATO forces in northeast Bosnia.
Jelisic, 29, is charged by the U-N court with commanding the notorious Luka camp in the Bosnian city of Brcko in May 1992.
NATO Secretary General Javier Solana is pleased with the arrest and promises a fair trial for other war criminals in the former Yugoslavia.
The suspected Bosnian Serb war criminal Goran Jelisic was arrested on the streets of his hometown Bijeljina (Republika Srpska) in the morning by S-FOR troops from the United States.
By nightfall then he was in prison at the Hague to face charges from U-N War Crimes Tribunal.
Jelisic is quite a prize for the West and a shot in the arm for the sagging Dayton peace accords.
He referred to himself as 'Adolph' after Hitler, and ran the Luka prison camp near Brcko in the early stages on the Yugoslav war in 1992.
Last Summer, a mass grave was found near Brcko and that evidence will be presented at Jelisic's U-N trial.
The suspect, who used to like to brag about killing Muslims, faces charges of killing 16 Muslims specifically and 'countless detainees'.
NATO Secretary General Javier Solana was happy about Jelisic's arrest and implied he would not be the last suspected war criminal to be arrested and tried.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
'The responsibility on all war criminals lies basically on all the parties but if they do not comply with their responsibility we have the mission to arrest them if we encounter them along our mission. That has been done today with a very important indicted war criminal. A lesson to be drawn -- that war criminals should be in front of a tribunal having a fair trial and they will be in front of a tribunal having a fair trial and all the indicted war criminals should know that.'
SUPER CAPTION: Javier Solana, NATO Secretary-General
In Bijeljina, where Jelisic was arrested, the suspected war criminal bragged about his atrocities at the Luka camp to townsfolk.
Jelisic is the twentieth suspect in tribunal custody out of more than seventy-five publicly indicted for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
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