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Israel to extradite citizen over Srebrenica genocide

A court in Jerusalem has ruled that an Israeli citizen who took part in Srebrenica massacre of 1995, be extradited to Bosnia to face charges of genocide.

The AFP reported that Aleksandar Cvetkovic, a Bosnian Serb who obtained Israeli citizenship through his Jewish wife, is accused of "involvement in the offence of genocide during the massacre carried out in 1995 at Branjevo farm in the vicinity of the town of Srebrenica."

The massacre, which was the worst on European soil since World War Two, involved the execution of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Serbian troops.

After his arrest in January, the state prosecutor's office called the extradition process, part of "an international legal action that investigates and prosecutes those responsible for planning and carrying out genocide."

According to evidence in the Israeli prosecutors' extradition request: "The victims were brought by buses to the execution site, some blindfolded with their hands tied, stood up in rows and shot by the soldiers, using automatic rifles, heavy machines guns and pistols."

Cvetkovic was part of the firing squad and allegedly said "that this execution is proceeding slowly and that they should also start to use the M-84 machinegun".

He is to be extradited to a court in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, which was set up in 2005 to assist the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia based in The Hague. Both courts have sentenced dozens of Bosnian Serbs for charges of war crimes and genocide.

Amongst those currently on trial are former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic and Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic. The final Serbian war crimes fugitive, Goran Hadzic, was arrested earlier this year.

The massacre at Srebrenica became a symbol for the breakup of Yugoslavia, once a multi-ethnic state, into several independent countries.

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