Five former members of Bosnian Muslim forces were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of killing and illegally detaining ethnic Serb civilians during the country's 1990s war, prosecutors said.
The five were arrested as part of an investigation into war crimes committed against Serb civilians detained in a school and a prison set up by Bosnian Muslim forces in a Sarajevo suburb.
The arrested are "suspected of killing at least eight detained civilians", prosecutors said in a statement.
More than 100 people held in the Hrasnica suburb were victims of "torture and extremely humiliating persecution... and forced labour," the statement said.
The victims were ethnic Serb civilians brought from western Sarajevo suburbs, including Hrasnica.
In Bosnia's 1992-1995 war these suburbs were not encircled during the siege of Sarajevo.
More than 11,000 people, including 1,600 children, were killed during the Sarajevo siege by Serb forces.
But in a city with a multi-ethnic pre-war population, some Serb civilians were also victims of war crimes committed by the defenders.
Serb victims' associations often denounce the Bosnian judicial system for not doing enough to prosecute war crimes against them.
In June, two former members of Bosnian Muslim forces were sentenced to five and 11 years in jail respectively for war crimes against Serb civilians detained at several places in the city.
There is no reliable figure on the number of Serb civilian victims during the siege, with estimates varying from a few dozen to hundreds.
Bosnia's inter-ethnic war claimed some 100,000 lives, with two-thirds of the victims Muslim, according to an independent commission.
