Milosevic will face charges of genocide

The United Nations war crimes tribunal has agreed to hear genocide charges arising from the Bosnian war against the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

Mr Milosevic already faces war crimes charges over his role in the Croatian and Kosovan wars, but the Bosnia indictment is the first to include genocide, the most serious crime in the tribunal's statute.

The Bosnia indictment, submitted on 12 November after years of preparation, was confirmed by the tribunal judge Richard May.

The tribunal defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group". Those acts include murder, inflicting living conditions designed to eliminate a group, preventing births or transferring children from one group to another.

A prosecution spokeswoman said the indictment charged Mr Milosevic with 29 counts, including genocide, complicity to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and violations of the laws or customs of war.

The document alleges that Mr Milosevic "participated in a joint criminal enterprise, the purpose of which was the forcible and permanent removal of the majority of non-Serbs from large areas of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina". It included responsibility for the murder of more than 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica in July 1995.

Thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats were held at detention centres in "inhuman conditions" before they were trucked to execution sites. "The total number of people expelled or imprisoned is estimated at over a quarter of a million," the prosecution said.

Mr Milosevic was extradited to The Hague from Belgrade on June 28.