"The decision on temporary suspension of Vahid Alagic, deputy head of DGS, was made after the state prosecutor launched an investigation based on suspicion that Alagic and others committed war crimes," the DGS said in a statement.
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Bosnia's border police, the DGS, said on Friday it had suspended a senior Muslim official on suspicion of involvement in war crimes, and 12 other officials suspected of abuse of office.
"The decision on temporary suspension of Vahid Alagic, deputy head of DGS, was made after the state prosecutor launched an investigation based on suspicion that Alagic and others committed war crimes," the DGS said in a statement.
SRNA news agency reported that Alagic was suspected of taking part in the murder of 48 Serb civilians in the area of southern town of Konjic, at an unspecified time during Bosnia's 1992-95 war between ethnic Serbs, Croats and Muslims.
Pending the completion of a probe, the border police also removed from office 12 officers believed to have been involved with a criminal gang which evaded taxes during the import, customs clearance and registration of cars.
!ADVERTISEMENT!"There is a suspicion that the group, together with ex- and current customs officials ... and individuals employed in shipping companies enabled such imports for personal gain and thus damaged the state budget," the statement said.
DGS added the move came following a three-year investigation into the case, in cooperation with the office of the state prosecutor which later opened its own investigation.
Separately on Friday, the prosecutor's office said police arrested Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Vinko Kondic in the northeastern town of Bijeljina.
Former police commander Kondic, 54, is suspected of crimes against humanity committed against Muslim and Croat civilians during the war.
Local media reported that Kondic was the deputy to Simo Drljaca, chief of police in the northwestern Prijedor region, who was charged by the United Nations war crimes court in The Hague with orchestrating mass torture and hundreds of murders.
Drljaca was killed in a 1997 shootout with British troops. It was the first attempt by NATO peacekeepers to arrest a war crimes suspect sought by the Hague tribunal.
(Reporting by Maja Zuvela; Editing by Ellie Tzortzi and Giles Elgood)
