CASKETS WITH REMAINS OF 307 GENOCIDE VICTIMS DEPART FOR SREBRENICA

VISOKO, Bosnia (July 9,2008) - Hundreds of Bosnians gathered today in the central Bosnian town of Visoko, some 30 kilometres northwest of the capital Sarajevo, to pay respects to the genocide victims from the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica. Caskets with remains of 307 Srebrenica victims will be transported by trucks to the Genocide Memorial Centre in Potocari,near Srebrenica.

On Friday, commemoration and burial will be held marking the 13th anniversary of the genocide in this part of Bosnia in which the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor mass murdered some 10,000 Bosnian civilians,during the 1992-95 Serbian aggression against Bosnia.

The trucks with the caskets passed also through Bosnia's capital Sarajevo where the citizens of Sarajevo as well as the country's officials, including the Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic, went on the streets to pay their respects to the genocide victims from Srebrenica.


A Bosnian man cries as he stands near to the coffins containing the remains of 307 bodies of the genocide victims from Srebrenica, leaving the morgue in central Bosnian town of Visoko, on the way to Srebrenica on Wednesday, July 9, 2008.307 bodies of the genocide victims were exumed from mass-graves in Eastern Bosnia and were identified as Bosnian civilians mass murdered by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor in the Srebrenica area during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia.


Bosnian women pray near to the coffins containing the remains of 307 bodies of the genocide victims from Srebrenica, leaving the morgue in central Bosnian town of Visoko, on the way to Srebrenica on Wednesday, July 9, 2008. Relatives gather to see the coffins after the 307 bodies of the genocide victims were exumed from mass-graves in Eastern Bosnia. The bodies of the genocide victims were transported to the Genocide Memorial Center in Potocari,near Srebrenica,where they will be buried on 11 July, 2008, when the 13th anniversary of the genocide is to be marked.


Bosnian women hug and cry on July 9, 2008 while seeing off the coffins containing the remains of their family members from the morgue in the central town of Visoko on their way to the eastern town of Srebrenica, where they will be buried at a joint cemetery for all genocide victims from Srebrenica on July 11, 2008. The families bury each year newly-identified genocide victims after they had been dug out of mass graves.The genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor mass murdered some 10,000 Bosnian civilians in Srebrenica in July 1995.

The 307 recently identified genocide victims will be buried next to fewer than 3,000 other genocide victims interred in Potocari since the Genocide Memorial Centre was opened five years ago.

The remains of an unknown number of the genocide victims exhumed from more than 60 mass graves discovered in the Srebrenica area during the last decade, and currently packed in more than 5,000 bags, are still awaiting identification and proper burial.
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BOSNIA TO OPEN EMBASSY IN ALBANIA SOON

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 9,2008) - The Bosnian Foreign Affairs Minister Sven Alkalaj met in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo yesterday with a delegation of the Albanian Parliament, led by speaker Josefina Topalli.

Minister Alkalaj told his guests that he expects cooperation between bosnia and Albania to intensify in all levels of government, and announced Bosnia’s plans to open its embassy in Albania soon. The Bosnian and albanian officials also pledged to work on visa facilitation for the Albanian citizens travelling to Bosnia.
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BOSNIAN AND ALBANIAN PARLIAMENTARIANS MET IN SARAJEVO

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 9,2008) - Representatives of the Bosnian Parliament met in Sarajevo yesterday with a delegation of the Albanian Parliament, led by Speaker Josefina Topalli.

As chairman of the Bosnian State Parliament's House of Representatives Niko Lozancic said then, their economic relations are almost non-existent, although the two countries have no open issues, nor any other reason not to cooperate more.

Both have EU and NATO ambitions. Neither Albania nor Bosnia have their diplomatic representatives in the other country’s capital. Topalli agreed that their cooperation needs to intensify.
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CLOSING ARGUMENTS IN THE TRIAL OF 11 SERBIAN WAR CRIMINALS CHARGED WITH GENOCIDE SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 9,2008) - Closing arguments, in the trial of Serbian war criminals Miloš Stupar, Milenko Trifunović, Brane Džinić, Aleksandar Radovanović, Slobodan Jakovljević, Velibor Maksimović, Dragiša Živanović, Branislav Medan, Petar Mitrović, Miladin Stevanović and Milovan Matić charged with the criminal offence of Genocide, have been scheduled for 10 July 2008 starting at 09:00a.m before the Bosnian State Court.

According to the indictment, in the period from 10 to 19 July 1995,during the Serbian aggression against Bosnia as knowing participants in a joint criminal enterprise, the accused committed the criminal offence of genocide. This crime was committed as part of widespread and systematic attack against the Bosnian population inside the UN protected area of Srebrenica carried out by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor, with a common plan to annihilate in part a group of Bosnian people.

The indictment states that, on 12 and 13 July 1995, the accused were deployed along the Bratunac-Milići road between the villages of Kravica and Sandići, Municipality of Bratunac, including a section of the road near the Kravica Farming Cooperative warehouse.

These 11 Serbian war criminals,the indictment states, controlled the said road in accordance with a plan of forcible transfer of around 25,000 Bosnian civilians from Srebrenica. According to the charges, on 13 July 1995 they conducted aggressive operations in the form of reconnaissance and attacks using tanks and other weaponry against a column of Bosnian civilians in the area of Kamenicar.

On the same day, the accused allegedly conducted patrols on the road and set up ambushes to intercept the column of Bosnian civilians trying to reach the territory under the control of the Bosnian Army.

According to the indictment, these 11 Serbian war criminals participated in the detention of several thousand Bosnian civilians in and around Sandići, Municipality of Bratunac. A number of these men were handed over to other genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor's soldiers who put them on trucks and transported them in an unknown direction - their whereabouts remain unknown since that time. The rest of the Bosnian civilians were transported to different locations including the Kravica Farming Cooperative warehouse.

As the indictment further states, more than 1,000 Bosnian civilians were detained by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor in the Kravica Farming Cooperative warehouse.

In the early evening hours, in the presence of Serbian war criminal Miloš Stupar, these Bosnian civilians were mass murdered in the following manner: Serbian war criminal Milenko Trifunović, Slobodan Jakovljević, Aleksandar Radovanović, Miladin Stevanović, Petar Mitrović, Branislav Medan, Velibor Maksimović and Dragiša Živanović fired their machine guns at more then 1,000 detained Bosnian civilians; Serbian war criminal Brano Džinić threw hand grenades at them, while Serbian war criminal Milovan Matić was reloading the ammunition,the Bosnian State Court said.
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GREGORIAN REVEALS A SECRET PLAN TO DISCREDIT TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 9,2008) - „It is high time to stop the propaganda campaign against Transparency International in Bosnia and allow independent judicial institutions to investigate any allegations in accordance with principles of due process and impartiality”, the International Community's Principal Deputy High Representative in Bosnia Raffi Gregorian said today after meeting with the acting Chief Prosecutor of the Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office, Milorad Barasin.

During the meeting, Gregorian handed over to the acting Chief Prosecutor a letter received on 6 February, describing a detailed plan for discrediting Transparency International in Bosnia. At the time, this information seemed ludicrous. However, last week’s events have shown that the described plan is in fact being carried outby some political representatives of the Serbians living in Bosnia.

As the letter was received anonymously, it could not be acted upon until the author revealed himself. Now that a Serbian living in Bosnia Dragomir Babic has come out as its author, Gregorian has decided to hand the letter over to the Bosnian State Prosecutor as possible evidence.
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MALAYSIAN COMPANY TO INVEST OVER 100 MILLION BOSNIAN MARKS TO EXPLORE OIL DEPOSITS IN BOSNIA

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 9,2008) - The Malaysian company, registered under the name Tara-Drina in Bosnia and headed by Joseph Vijay Kumar, has asked for concessions to explore Bosnian oilfields in the northern town of Tuzla, the western town of Livno and the southern town of Stolac.

The FBIH entity government said it has suggested a partnership for Tara-Drina with the Bosnian engineering firm Energoinvest, which was the local partner in the original project and ordered last year to draft a plan of exploration for 2008-2017.

"The authority in this business has been given to Energoinvest but it cannot conduct it on its own," the statement quoted the FBIH Entity Prime Minister Nedzad Brankovic as saying.

Energoinvest has said that it would look for a strategic partner to finance the research after it has got the right to concessions from the FBIH entity's 10 cantons, a procedure that is underway.

Bosnian geologists are not certain about quantities but believe they range from 20 million tonnes of oil at northern smaller beds to possibly 500 million tonnes in southern deposits, which were hard to assess at 5,000-6,000 metres depth.

Tara-Drina representatives said they had a team that was ready to start immediately with exploration, the FBIH entity government said in the statement.

Kumar told Bosnian daily Dnevni Avaz yesterday that his company would invest up to $90 million (113 million Bosnian Marks) to explore three deposits in the Tuzla area in the first phase of exploration.

Another team of Canadian and British consultants also visited potential oilfields across Bosnia last week, Dnevni Avaz reported.
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