Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Wednesday 23 May 2007
Prisoners of war sue Bosnian Serb entity
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia, May 23 (dpa) - Nearly 2,000 Bosnian Muslims and Croats
who passed through Bosnian Serb detention facilities during the 1992-1995
war in the country on Wednesday launched suits against the Bosnian Serb
entity, demanding compensation for time spent in detention camps.
The court in Banja Luka confirmed it received a total of 1,928 individual
suits from the former prisoners against the Bosnian Serb entity, the
Srpska Republic.
"This is just a beginning and more suits will come soon," head of the
Association of Prisoners of War Murat Tahirovic said.
Most of the complaints, he said, were submitted by people who were
detained in Bosnian Serb detention facilities in western Bosnia -
Prijedor, Sanski Most and Banja Luka.
Compensation, Tahirovic said, should amount to some 300 euros
(404 dollars) per day of detention and should be paid to all those
who went through physical torture, the consequences of which are
still visible and could be documented.
Tahirovic said more lawsuits could be expected soon from the association
which gathers some 55,000 former prisoners of war.
He also said that Bosnian Serbs who went through Bosnian Muslim or Croat
detention facilities should do the same and sue those who detained them.
Je li neko zna sta o ovomeBosnian camp inmates submit compensation claims
By Olja Stanic
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia, May 23 (Reuters) - Nearly 2,000 Bosnian Muslims and Croats detained in camps during the 1992-95 war submitted compensation claims on Wednesday against the Serb Republic totalling almost $50 million.
The claims seek 300 euros ($400) in damages per day of detention, said Murat Tahirovic, head of an association of camp inmates.
"The most important thing for us is for the courts to determine who was responsible for what happened," he told Reuters. "But we also want our members to be compensated in a proper way."
Separately, the association of Bosnian Serb wartime camp inmates said on Wednesday it was preparing to file 7,000 compensation claims against the Muslim-Croat federation for detentions in the Muslim- and Croat-run camps. If awarded, these compensation payments could put a huge strain on the finances of the two regions that make up the Balkan country.
At least 100,000 people on all sides were killed in the war. Backed by the former Yugoslav army, Bosnian Serb and Serbian paramilitaries killed, detained or expelled hundreds of thousands of Muslim and Croats in "ethnic cleansing" campaign.
Dozens of Serbs have been convicted or are being tried by the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague or local courts for their role in detention camps for tens of thousands of non-Serbs.
Muslim and Croat forces also run detention camps but independent historians say their number was much lower. Some Muslims and Croats have been prosecuted for this as well.
Courts in both regions have already awarded compensation for unlawful wartime detentions in several dozen cases. Tahirovic said these amounts were "shamefully low" -- sometimes nine marka ($6.2) was awarded for a day of detention.
After lodging the claims with lawyers at a local court in Banja Luka, Tahirovic said compensation sought in the 1,928 cases was about 36 million euros ($48 million).
They mostly relate to detentions in a wider Banja Luka area in the north-west, including notorious camps such as Manjaca, Omarska and Keraterm, Tahirovic said.
He said payment of the earlier compensation claims in the Serb Republic was postponed for 50 years because the region said it needed more time to pay billions of dollars in various war-related damages.
"But the (Bosnian) constitutional court has ordered that this period be shortened and we expect future compensation to be higher and paid out sooner," Tahirovic said.
The total could in theory rise to about 750 million euros ($1 billion) if another 40,000 Muslim and Croat inmates from about 500 Serb-run camps filed their claims, he said.
