SARAJEVO: A former Bosnian Serb soldier was acquitted on Thursday of charges he helped kill hundreds of Muslims during the Srebrenica genocide, just about a week before commemorations of the massacre’s 20th anniversary.

Aleksandar Cvetkovic was tried by a Bosnian court.

Handing down judgement Judge Darko Samardzic said the evidence and witness statements “cast serious doubt on the prosecution’s accusations... and where there is a doubt the court must rule in favour of the accused”. Almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered and buried in mass graves in Srebenica in mid-July 1995, by Bosnian Serb troops commanded by Ratko Mladic.

The massacr, which came towards the end of Bosnia’s three-year civil war in which 100,000 people died, was Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II and has been labelled genocide by two international courts.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2015

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