NATO Defends Hand-Over of Bosnians

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — NATO on Monday defended the hand-over of seven armed men, presumed to be Muslims, to Bosnian Serb authorities last week after the group had surrendered to U.S. troops in Serbian territory.

“They were people carrying weapons in Serb jurisdiction,” Maj. Simon Haselock, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization spokesman, said. “In the eyes of the military police commander on the ground, it was a clear criminal matter for civil jurisdiction.”

But a NATO officer said earlier that the U.S. troops had blundered in handing over the seven. “An American major on the ground took the decision without consulting any higher authority,” the officer said.

U.N. police monitors were also said to have agreed that the seven should not have been handed over to the Serbs.

The seven were detained Friday by U.S. soldiers serving in northeastern Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of the NATO-led peace implementation force. They were held briefly before being handed over to Serbian police in Zvornik, a town on the Bosnian-Yugoslav border.