A former Bosnian Muslim commander has called on international justices to order Bosnia to drop war crimes charges against him, arguing he has already been tried in the case, officials said Monday.
Naser Oric was seen as a symbol of Bosnian Muslim resistance against Serb brutalities when he led Muslim forces in the east in the 1992-1995 conflict.
But along with Sabahudin Muhic, he stands accused of the murder of three Serb prisoners-of-war in 1992, in what the prosecutor's office in Sarajevo described as a "war crime against prisoners".
His lawyer, Vasvija Vidovic, asked judges in The Hague to "issue an order requesting the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to permanently discontinue proceedings against the applicant."
The request has been made to the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, which is gradually taking over follow-on legal proceedings from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as it winds down operations.
In 2006, Oric was sentenced by the ICTY to two years in prison for not doing enough to protect Srebrenica's Serb population during the war.
But he was acquitted on appeal two years later.
His new arrest in June sparked an outcry among Bosnian Muslim leaders and families of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces.
He was arrested in Switzerland on a warrant issued by Serbia, which also wanted to try him for war crimes against ethnic Serbs in Srebrenica.
And despite the outcry, Switzerland decided to extradite him to his home country to face charges.
Oric's lawyer said in his filing made public Monday that under international law governing the tribunal, no person can be tried before a national court for crimes for which they have already been tried.
There was already "reliable information demonstrating the institution of criminal proceedings," the lawyer wrote.
Bosnian media reported in October that Oric and Muhic, had appeared before the court in the capital Sarajevo to enter not-guilty pleas.