Murder on video

last updated 8 January 2015

Belgrade

A gruesome video of Serbian paramilitaries massacring Muslim boys and men in Bosnia in 1995, shown on Serbian television last week, has led to the arrest of some of the apparent murderers. The video, part of the evidence in the trial of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, shows paramilitaries being blessed by a Serbian Orthodox priest immediately before torturing and killing truckloads of Bosnian Muslims. Some 8,000 people died in the Srebrenica massacre. While most of the killers were Bosnian Serbs, the men on the video were from Serbia, under Milosevic’s chain of command. The Serbian government reacted quickly, arresting at least eight of the men the day after the video aired. “The killers had walked freely among us, on our streets, behaving as if they were ordinary, honorable citizens,” said an appalled President Boris Tadic. “All those who committed war crimes must be held accountable.”