Montenegro charges seven ex-security forces with war crimes

Montenegro charged seven former army and police officers with crimes against humanity allegedly committed against Muslim civilians in the early 1990s, prosecution said.

The seven, once members of the former Yugoslav army and Montenegro's interior ministry, are accused of having "treated in an inhuman way" Muslims in the northern mountain region of Bukovica, where 37 villages were populated mostly by Muslims before the 1992-1995 war in neighbouring Bosnia.

The group is accused of having "abused, caused severe sufferings, jeopardized health, intimidated and created an atmosphere for forced emigration" of Muslims from the area in 1992 and 1993, the prosecution said in a statement.

Local Muslims eventually fled the region, it added.

The prosecution demanded all seven be arrested and detained.

Rights groups say that at least eight people were killed and several hundred of Muslim civilians were expelled from the region of Bukovica during the Bosnian war, while hundreds of their houses were destroyed.