General awaits Srebrenica verdict

If found guilty of genocide, Radislav Krstic could be jailed for life

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A former Bosnian Serb general faces judgment on Thursday over charges of genocide related to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Radislav Krstic is charged with the murder of thousands of Muslim men and boys after the fall of Srebrenica, a U.N.-designated "safe area."

Delivering his judgement, Presiding Judge Almiro Rodrigues said he considered that genocide was committed in Srebrenica. The verdict on the charges faced by Krstic has not yet been delivered.

Krstic could become the first defendant to be jailed for life by the United Nations war crimes tribunal if he is found guilty.

YOUR SAY War Crimes Tribunal: Is justice being done?      IN-DEPTH Srebrenica: Five days of evil   • Survivor's Story   • Gallery   • Massacre background   • Rebuilding Srebrenica   • Prayers for the dead   • Grief of the widows   • Mass grave found   • War crimes defendants   • Profile: Radko Mladic   • Profile: Radovan Karadzic   AUDIO Gordana Igric, of the Institute of War and Peace: An important day for the court 1.76 MB / 166 sec AIFF or WAV sound

On Wednesday, the head of Bosnia's Commission for Missing Persons, Amor Masovic, told Reuters that the remains of more than 200 Bosnian Muslims believed killed by Serb forces were found in a mass grave in exhumations in July.

U.N. war crimes investigators unearthed 191 bodies in the same grave last year -- and it is feared more will be found, he said

The U.N. exhumations were carried out as part of the search for evidence against Krstic, U.N. tribunal spokeswoman Florence Hartmann told Reuters.

She said they were related to the killing of nearly 1,000 Srebrenica Muslims at the Kravice warehouse site, believed to have been masterminded by Krstic.

The Srebrenica massacre in July 1995 saw the systematic extermination of 7,500 Muslims in what was described at the war crimes tribunal as “the triumph of evil.”

The genocide, regarded to be Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, took place in what had been designated a U.N. “safe area” three months earlier.

A judge at The Hague tribunal was later to describe what happened in Srebrenica as “truly scenes from hell written on the darkest pages of human history.”

A shirt recovered from a mass grave of victims of the Srebrenica massacre

Thousands of Bosnian Muslims were rounded up and murdered after seeking refuge in the spa town.

Those who tried to hide in their homes were, according to evidence at Krstic's trial at The Hague in March, 2000, “hunted down like dogs and slaughtered.”

Masovic told Reuters exhumations from the grave at Glogova, near the eastern town of Bratunac, would resume in two weeks.

He said one fifth of the grave had so far been exhumed. Asked to estimate the final number of victims expected to be found, he said: "Many more."

Masovic told Reuters that documents found on the bodies proved they were Muslims from Srebrenica slaughtered by Bosnian Serb forces.

He said the work in July was conducted by local forensic teams and assisted by U.N. experts.

It was the continuation of work conducted by the Hague tribunal's investigators from August to October 2000, he said.

Hartmann said investigators had discovered the remains of 191 individuals and many more body parts at the Glogova site in 2000.

The tribunal had earlier refused to reveal the number of victims found at the site while the investigation was under way.