The policeman who dug out the horrors of Srebrenica

The policeman who dug out the horrors of Srebrenica
By Meg Bortin Published: July 11, 2008

PARIS: There are cops who enjoy the limelight on television, and then there are the ones who do the work. Jean-René Ruez is the second kind. He went in with his own shovel to search for evidence - "multiple human remains" - while chief investigator in Srebrenica, where thousands of Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered in July 1995 in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

Ruez, a senior French police officer, was the central figure in establishing the facts about those murders. He knows better than anyone how as many as 8,000 men and boys fleeing Srebrenica were rounded up by Bosnian Serb forces, shot, buried and then reburied in mass graves to hide the evidence of what has been officially classified as genocide.

Since leaving the Bosnia investigation in 2001, Ruez has taken cases of videotapes, files and other evidence around the world with him to have proof on hand when called to testify against suspected war criminals. Today, although he has moved into a less harrowing line of police work, he continues to pursue what he sees as an unfinished quest for justice.
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