A former Bosnian Serb militia leader, wanted by a UN tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity, has been captured here, Argentine police and Serbian officials said.
Milan Lukic, who was indicted in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2000 in connection with a string of notorious killings during the Bosnian war, was awaiting initial questioning after his arrest Monday, authorities said.
Earlier this year, a Serbian court sentenced Lukic in absentia to 20 years in prison for his role in the abduction of 16 Muslims from a bus in eastern Serbia in 1992.
Lukic, as a reputed member of a notorious paramilitary group -- the Avengers -- allegedly took part in the abduction of the Muslims, 15 men and a woman, who were later taken to Bosnia, tortured at a local hotel and executed. Their bodies were dumped in the Drina River.
An Argentine federal police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Lukic was awaiting questioning by a judge on an "international request."
Police did not provide details of the arrest, which was first disclosed by Serbian authorities after reports began circulating in Belgrade. Lukic had been on the run since the late 1990s.
According to the UN war crimes indictment, Lukic in 1992 organized a group of paramilitaries who between May 1992 and October 1994 "committed, planned, instigated and ordered the executions" of Bosnian Muslims in the territory of Visegrad and elsewhere in Bosnian Serb-controlled areas.
He is also charged in the indictment with cruel and inhumane acts against non-Serbs, persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, crimes against humanity as well as unlawful detention, humiliation, terrorizing and psychological abuse of Bosnian Muslims.
"We heard the news and we greatly appreciate the work of the Argentine police," said Florence Hartmann, spokeswoman for the chief UN war crimes prosecutor.
Lukic is the second former paramilitary detained in Argentina in months.
In June, Serbia requested the extradition of Nebojsa Minic, commander of the notorious former group known as "Lightning" that operated in the Serbian province of Kosovo during a 1998-99 war there.
Minic, who is suspected of killing 12 members of a Kosovo Albanian family in 1999, was arrested in May in the western Argentine city of Mendoza on charges of illegal entry and use of forged documents. Although he is sought for trial at home, Minic is not wanted by the UN war crimes court in The Hague.
Two other top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitives, wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and military commander General Ratko Mladic, remain at large.
In June 1992, according to the indictment, Lukic and others led seven Bosnian Muslim men to the Drina River where Lukic shot them with automatic weapons, killing five.
Also in June, Lukic and other militiamen allegedly drove to a furniture factory in Visegrad, where seven Bosnian Muslim men were marched to a riverbank and shot and killed, the indictment says.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS