SEVEN MOSLEMS HANDED OVER TO SERBS APPARENTLY FROM SREBRENICA

SARAJEVO, May 15 (Hina) - The commander of IFOR ground troops in Bosnia, Gen. Michael Walker, on Wednesday rejected the Bosnian government's accusations over the surrender of seven Bosnian Moslem men to Serb authorities. The NATO-led peace Implementation Force (IFOR) issued a statement recalling that armed groups, such as the seven men, represented a threat to the peace process under the US-sponsored Dayton peace agreement. Walker fully supported a US officer who had decided to hand the Moslems to the Serbs after two-hour interrogation. UN spokesman in Sarajevo Alexander Ivanko said that the seven men who had turned themselves in to US troops near the northeastern town of Zvornik were apparently from the eastern Moslem enclave of Srebrenica, overrun by Serb forces in the summer of 1995, because their names were on lists of missing persons. Walker dismissed criticism by Bosnian government officials that the seven men from Srebrenica should not have been handed over to the Serbs after what they had been through. The war is over and the tragedy that happened in Srebrenica cannot have influence on crimes committed afterwards, Walker said. The Bosnian Serb authorities have accussed the seven Moslems of being responsible for killing four persons in the Srebrenica area on May 2. The Serbs have not presented any evidence to the international police force to corroborate those charges and have barred access to the scenes of the alleged crimes. (hina) vm 151349 MET may 96