Five U.N. police reported hurt in Bosnia

Demonstrators stormed the police station, angry about the killing of a war crimes suspect.

The Associated Press

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Angry demonstrators beat up five members of a U.N. police force after NATO troops killed a Bosnian war crimes suspect, officials said Sunday. The attackers who burst into the police station and assaulted the U.N. police were part of a crowd of 100 that had surrounded the building Saturday in the eastern city of Foca, NATO spokeswoman Frederike Seidel said. The station was badly damaged and its equipment destroyed, she said. An officer from India and another from Portugal were hospitalized, and three others -- a Spaniard, a German and an American -- were slightly injured, Seidel said. She didn't specify how they were hurt. Foca, 30 miles southeast of Sarajevo, was reported calm Sunday. Saturday's attack came after an attempt to arrest Dragan Gagovic, 39, a Bosnian Serb accused of raping and torturing Muslim women during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. French soldiers in the NATO-led Bosnian peace force shot him to death Saturday in a car. Five children were riding in his car at the time, a fact that prompted harsh criticism from Bosnian Serb hard-liners and moderates alike. Despite a conflicting claim by at least one of the children, NATO reiterated Sunday that Gagovic was to blame for the shooting. "Unfortunately, due to the reckless action of Mr. Gagovic placing the passengers in his vehicle at needless risk, he was shot as he ran his car directly at SFOR soldiers," said NATO spokesman Glenn Chamberlain, referring to the soldiers by the acronym for NATO's peacekeeping Stabilization Force. The five children who were in Gagovic's car appeared on Bosnian Serb TV Saturday night, distressed and crying and showing bullet holes in their backpacks. One of the girls, Sonja Bijelovic, gave an account that differed from the NATO version. She said Gagovic, their karate coach, had stopped the car to figure out how to get around obstacles in the road when shots were fired. The Bosnian Serb prime minister, Milorad Dodik, a moderate, joined other Bosnian Serb officials in voicing "deep concern" about what he called an "inappropriate" action. "It is inconceivable that SFOR personnel overlooked the fact that the car they opened fire on had children inside," he said. The hard-line Serbian Democratic Party said it was "shocked by the brutality" of the killing. "Was it necessary to endanger so many children?" it asked. The U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, was seeking Gagovic on suspicion of torturing and raping at least five Muslim women who had been detained at a makeshift prison in 1992. Separately on Sunday, NATO began destroying weapons seized from Bosnian Croat military bases after the Croats failed to comply with demands to suspend the unauthorized appointments of several generals. NATO forces seized tanks, armored vehicles, cannons, small arms and radio and communication equipment from several Bosnian Croat- controlled military bases Saturday in response to the promotions. The Croat member of Bosnia's three-member presidency, Ante Jelavic, promoted the officers last week without consulting his Muslim partners and NATO as required.

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