BOSNIAN OFFICIALS WELCOME ACQUITTAL OF BOSNIAN ARMY COMMANDER NASER ORIC

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 4,2008) - Bosnian officials welcomed yesterday a decision by the Appeals Chamber of the UN War Crimes Tribunal to overturn the war crimes conviction of the former commander of the Bosnian Army units in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica Naser Oric and acquitted him of all war crimes charges including the killings of six genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor's soldiers captured and held by the Bosnian Army in 1992 and 1993 in Srebrenica.

The Appeals Chamber of the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) determined there was too little evidence to justify Oric's initial conviction.

"The evidence that Naser Oric is innocent have always existed and I think it is a great shame that he spent almost four years in jail, said yesterday the President of the Mothers of Srebrenica Association, Munira Subasic.

"When the indictment was raised by ICTY against Naser Oric, I, as a victim of genocide, searching after members of my family murdered in Srebrenica, felt then that the court had become unjust", Subašić added.

She considers that when Naser Oric was taken to the Hague Tribunal, the politics entered that Court.

"I can't believe that after the genocide, the massacre of our children, the judges and prosecutors had nothing else to do but to condemn one man who tried to defend Bosnia as best as he knew", Subasic points out.

She repeated that the war criminals should be prosecuted in the ICTY and that they should be sentenced to the life imprisonment.

"That is the only way in which the Hague Tribunal could return a small piece of justice, and the victims of genocide to feel that someone did something for them", Subasic said.

Commenting on the decision, Srebrenica Mayor Abdurahman Malkic said it proved that the Bosnian Army was never involved in war crimes in the Srebrenica area.

Associations of demobilized soldiers from the Bosnian Army also welcomed the chamber's decision and called for the urgent arrest of all Serbian war criminals still at large.

In 1995, the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor's forces stormed a U.N.-declared "safe haven" in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica and mass murdered some 10,000 Bosnian civilians,which was Europe's worst civilian massacre since World War II.

Two of the masterminds of the Serbian genocide against the Bosnian people,committed during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia,Serbian war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are still hiding from justice.They remain at large almost 13 years since being charged with genocide by the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
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