Bosnian court acquits Serb policemen of war crimes charges News
Bosnian court acquits Serb policemen of war crimes charges

[JURIST] A Bosnian court Friday acquitted eleven Serb policeman who had been linked to the murders of a Catholic priest and his parents during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. Tomislav Matanovic and his parents disappeared in 1995 and their corpses were found in 2001 with close-range gunshot wounds. In the verdict, Banja Luka district court president Dusko Bojovic said that "It was not proved that they committed a criminal offence of illegal detention and keeping in detention of priest Tomislav Matanovic and his parents in Prijedor," and that there was no proved link between the detention of the Matanovics and their murder. The ruling is the first war crimes acquittal by a Bosnian Serb court. Human rights advocates are saying that inadequate investigations into the murders led to Friday's verdict. Reuters has more.