Five arrested over Bosnia genocide museums embezzlement

Bosnia police on Monday arrested five genocide museum employees suspected of embezzling money from the two institutions in the country dedicated to the victims of its 1990s conflict.

Jasmin Meskovic, who heads the Association of Detainees of Bosnia, was among those arrested, a spokeswoman from the prosecutors' office said.

Meskovic is "suspected of having organised, since July 2017, a group of people (who were)... selling forged entry tickets (and) keeping the collected money," spokeswoman Azra Bavcic said.

Meskovic is one of the museums' founders and co-president of the body that manages them.

The amount of money that was allegedly embezzled has not been disclosed.

In the Sarajevo museum, the price for an adult ticket is five euros (USD 5.60).

The museum of crimes against humanity and genocide in Sarajevo, which opened in 2016, became a must-see for visitors of the Bosnian capital which was under a bloody siege by Serb forces during the war.

A museum of the same branch opened in the southern town of Mostar in 2018.

Bosnia's war between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed 100,000 lives.

The massacre of some 8,000 Muslim males in Srebrenica in July 1995 by Serb forces was ruled as genocide by the International Court of Justice.