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A Bosnian Serb general jailed by the war crimes tribunal at The Hague for the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 has confessed to "aiding and abetting the genocide".
Survivors and families of more than 8,300 people who died in the mass killing reacted with skepticism to the account of Radislav Krstić, a corps commander who led the attack on the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica and oversaw the execution of captured men and boys.
Campaign groups Mothers of Srebrenica and the Association of Victims and Witnesses of Genocide suggested the confession was a ploy to win early release. They said others convicted of war crimes from the war in Bosnia had confessed only to recant after being released.
"This kind of behavior is a continuation of the already established practice of war criminals who are trying to free themselves in any way possible," the groups said in a joint statement.
Krstić became the first defendant to be convicted of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2001 and was sentenced to 46 years in prison.
His confession was made in support of an appeal for early release after 26 years in a string of prisons across Europe. It came in a four-page handwritten letter to the president of a remaining legal mechanism set up in The Hague to deal with cases heard by the court.
In the letter, Krstić said he supports a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly in May commemorating the genocide and making July 11 an official day of remembrance for the victims.
" My name is mentioned because I aided and abetted the genocide, my name is mentioned because I committed an unimaginable and unforgivable crime. I don't ask for forgiveness, I don't ask for excuse; I don't ask for understanding because I know that I can't and won't get them," the 76-year-old former general wrote.
"Every moment of every day, I think about the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, mourn them and pray for their souls. I know that the mother and sister of the innocent victim will not believe that these words are true; I also know that my words cannot ease the pain or suffering that will never go away.”
He said that if he were ever released, he would ask for permission to visit the Srebrenica memorial in the village of Potoçari, " to bow to the victims and ask for forgiveness."
The confession made news across the Balkans because Serbia and the Bosnian Serb leadership deny that the Srebrenica killings constituted genocide.
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