Milan - one of the most wanted Bosnian war crimes suspects - led a notorious Bosnian Serb paramilitary force known as the “White Eagles” or the “Avengers”, which operated in the municipality of Visegrad in southeastern Bosnia, near the border with Serbia, between 1992 and 1994.
Along with his cousin Sredoje Lukic, who was arrested in Russia in September and transferred to The Hague, Milan Lukic has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The indictment against them describes the activities of the paramilitaries, local police and military units as “a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing designed to rid the area of all non-Serb inhabitants”.
On one occasion in 1992, prosecutors allege that the two men killed some 70 Bosnian Muslims by driving them into a house in Nova Mahala, setting fire to the building and then gunning down anyone who tried to escape through the windows.
They are alleged to have employed a similar method just a fortnight later, this time barricading some 70 Muslims into a house in Bikavac and throwing explosives into the building. Only one person survived.
A third White Eagles member, Mitar Vasiljevic, was sentenced by the tribunal’s appeals chamber in February 2004 to 15 years in prison for his role in the murders of seven Bosnian Muslims.
The prosecution has requested that Milan and Sredoje Lukic be tried in local courts in Bosnia, as part of the tribunal’s completion strategy, which sees the court focusing on higher-level cases in order to meet its goal of finishing all trial proceedings by the end of 2008 and rounding up its work two years later.
Along with his cousin Sredoje Lukic, who was arrested in Russia in September and transferred to The Hague, Milan Lukic has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The indictment against them describes the activities of the paramilitaries, local police and military units as “a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing designed to rid the area of all non-Serb inhabitants”.
On one occasion in 1992, prosecutors allege that the two men killed some 70 Bosnian Muslims by driving them into a house in Nova Mahala, setting fire to the building and then gunning down anyone who tried to escape through the windows.
They are alleged to have employed a similar method just a fortnight later, this time barricading some 70 Muslims into a house in Bikavac and throwing explosives into the building. Only one person survived.
A third White Eagles member, Mitar Vasiljevic, was sentenced by the tribunal’s appeals chamber in February 2004 to 15 years in prison for his role in the murders of seven Bosnian Muslims.
The prosecution has requested that Milan and Sredoje Lukic be tried in local courts in Bosnia, as part of the tribunal’s completion strategy, which sees the court focusing on higher-level cases in order to meet its goal of finishing all trial proceedings by the end of 2008 and rounding up its work two years later.
