SENIOR BOSNIAN SERB ARMY OFFICERS ORGANISED WEAPONS SMUGGLING

SARAJEVO, March 4 (Hina) - Several senior officer of the Bosnian Serb army were directly involved in a weapons-smuggling chain, discovered at the end of last month near Brcko and Bijeljina (north- east Bosnia-Herzegovina), a Stabilisation Force representative told reporters in Sarajevo on Thursday. The commander of the SFOR headquarters in Bosnia-Herzegovina, General Karl-Heinz Lather, said investigations so far had revealed that the commander of the Republika Srpska Army 311th brigade, Major Milan Josic, together with several other members of the brigade, had been directly involved in the illegal weapons trade. The 311th infantry brigade was disbanded last week in line with a decision by a local SFOR commander and its weapons and equipment were confiscated. The decision was made after it had been established that the brigade had been involved in the transport and storage of large quantities of weapons and different kinds of ammunition, detected during a routine check-up of two civil trucks near Brcko and a warehouse near Bijeljina. Another two Serb army commanders were suspended because of strong evidence that they too had been part of the smuggling chain. It is obvious that the weapons were intended for resale, the German general said. According to the results of the investigation so far, the confiscated weapons were not part of regular reserves and the SFOR had no record of them whatsoever. Lather added he believed there were other hidden warehouses in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the search for them would continue. He allowed for the possibility that the weapons had been transported to Bosnia recently, possibly from some European country, but he could not confirm claims that the weapons had been intended for the Kosovo black market. (hina) rml