Genocide suspect pleads 'not guilty'

The indictment was kept secret from Nikolic

By Geraldine Coughlan BBC correspondent in The Hague

A Bosnian Serb former military commander, Momir Nikolic, has pleaded "not guilty" to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity before the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague.

The top suspects remain elusive

Mr Nikolic, 47, was arrested by Nato peacekeepers at his home in eastern Bosnia on Monday.

He is accused of genocide, extermination, murder and persecution and of contributing to the killing of over 7,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995.

The indictment against him was kept secret until his arrest in an effort to prevent him from going into hiding.

Mr Nikolic was a deputy intelligence chief with the Bosnian Serb army's Bratunac brigade, which allegedly took part in the mass executions of civilians from the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica.

Srebrenica enquiry

The enclave was a designated UN safe haven for Bosnian Muslims, but after it was taken over by Serb forces thousands of Muslim men and boys were taken away and shot.

Srebrenica was under the protection of Dutch UN peacekeepers when it fell to the hands of the Serbs.

Last week, the inter-church peace council in the Netherlands published a report blaming the Dutch government for the Srebrenica massacre, claiming that if an evacuation plan had been put in place the genocide could have been prevented.

The Institute of War Documentation in the Netherlands is to present an official report on events at Srebrenica on 10 April.

The next step is expected to be a full public inquiry to hold government departments accountable for the tragedy.