A former Bosnian Serb policeman who has already served time in prison for taking part in a massacre during the 1992-1995 war was arrested Monday on fresh war crimes charges.
Bosnian police detained Darko Mrdja along with two other ex-members of his police unit, Radenko Marinovic and Milan Gavrilovic.
Prosecutors accuse the trio -- as well as a fourth suspect who is already behind bars for a separate war crime -- of murdering non-Serb detainees in the early months of the Bosnian conflict.
They are suspected of having killed at least 10 people being transferred to detention camps in the northwestern town of Prijedor and a nearby village in July and August 1992, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Mrdja was in 2004 sentenced to 17 years in jail by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague after pleading guilty to taking part in the mass execution of some 200 Muslim and Croat civilians whose bodies were thrown off a cliff.
Mrdja, now 48, was released in 2013 after serving more than two-thirds of his sentence. He then returned to Bosnia.
During his trial Mrdja apologised to the families of the victims and said he was an "honourable" soldier until the end of the war.
The massacre took place in August 1992, when Bosnian Serb police took more than 200 prisoners, including Muslim detainees from Prijedor's notorious Trnopolje detention camp, to the Koricanske Stijene cliff.
The victims, who had been told they were on their way to a prisoner exchange, were shot after being forced to kneel at the edge of the cliff. All but 12 died.
Bosnia's 1990s inter-ethnic war claimed some 100,000 lives.
The Balkan country's courts are allowed to try low-profile war crimes cases, while the ICTY is tasked with cases involving top wartime officials.
A former Bosnian Serb policeman who has already served time in prison for taking part in a massacre during the 1992-1995 war was arrested Monday on fresh war crimes charges.
Bosnian police detained Darko Mrdja along with two other ex-members of his police unit, Radenko Marinovic and Milan Gavrilovic.
Prosecutors accuse the trio — as well as a fourth suspect who is already behind bars for a separate war crime — of murdering non-Serb detainees in the early months of the Bosnian conflict.
They are suspected of having killed at least 10 people being transferred to detention camps in the northwestern town of Prijedor and a nearby village in July and August 1992, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Mrdja was in 2004 sentenced to 17 years in jail by the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague after pleading guilty to taking part in the mass execution of some 200 Muslim and Croat civilians whose bodies were thrown off a cliff.
Mrdja, now 48, was released in 2013 after serving more than two-thirds of his sentence. He then returned to Bosnia.
During his trial Mrdja apologised to the families of the victims and said he was an “honourable” soldier until the end of the war.
The massacre took place in August 1992, when Bosnian Serb police took more than 200 prisoners, including Muslim detainees from Prijedor’s notorious Trnopolje detention camp, to the Koricanske Stijene cliff.
The victims, who had been told they were on their way to a prisoner exchange, were shot after being forced to kneel at the edge of the cliff. All but 12 died.
Bosnia’s 1990s inter-ethnic war claimed some 100,000 lives.
The Balkan country’s courts are allowed to try low-profile war crimes cases, while the ICTY is tasked with cases involving top wartime officials.
