Bosnian minister faces war trial

The U.N. tribunal is led by chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte

SARAJEVO, Bosnia -- A minister in the Bosnian government and former army chief has surrendered to the Hague war crimes tribunal.

Sefer Halilovic, who has denied the allegations, was indicted over the mass killing of about 30 Bosnian Croats in the southern village of Grabovica in 1993, his lawyer Faruk Balijagic said.

He was taken to the United Nations war crimes detention centre in The Hague after flying to the Netherlands from Sarajevo, a prosecution spokeswoman said.

Halilovic, who is now a leading member of the ruling Alliance for Change coalition, was in charge of the Bosnian Muslim-led army at the start of the Bosnian war but was replaced in mid-1993.

At the time of the Grabovica masacre he was army chief of staff -- making Halilovic the highest-ranking Bosnian Muslim to surrender to The Hague.

Halilovic, who left the army to form his own political party, is now refugee and social affairs minister in Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation.

Justice Minister Zvonko Mijan told Bosnia's BH Radio One: "I can only say that this is about so-called command responsibility," Reuters news agency reported.

The term refers to when commanders are held responsible for the actions of subordinates.

There was no immediate comment from officials at the U.N. Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands.

Halilovic would be the seventh Bosnian Muslim to be tried at the Hague. Around 70 people have been indicted for crimes committed in the Bosnian war.

At the beginning of the conflict, Bosnia's Muslims and Croats started the 1992-5 war as allies against the Serbs but fought their own war in 1993.

They rejoined in the federation, which now forms post-war Bosnia together with a Serb republic, in 1994.

Halilovic was born in Yugoslavia's southern Sandzak region, which has a substantial Muslim population.

He was an officer in the army of the old socialist Yugoslavia and helped organise Bosnian Muslim paramilitary units before the war broke out.