Montenegrin police arrested a man accused of killing and raping civilians as a member of Serb forces during the 1990s war in neighbouring Bosnia, authorities said Friday.
Slobodan Pekovic has been charged with killing two Muslim civilians and raping Muslim women in 1992 at the onset of Bosnia's conflict, prosecutors said.
Pekovic, who was arrested earlier this week, has been remanded into custody for 30 days, his lawyer Adrijana Razic told AFP.
The crimes were committed in the area of the southeast Bosnian town of Foca.
According to media reports, Pekovic was a member of the Bosnian Serb army during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.
The war between the country's ethnic Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed 100,000 lives.
Since Montenegro's independence from Serbia in 2006, the country has held eight trials of low-ranking officers accused of war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
Montenegro adopted a national war crimes investigation strategy in 2015, but so far just one case has ended in conviction.
In 2019, a former Yugoslav Army soldier was sentenced to 14 years in jail after he was found guilty of murdering four Albanian civilians during Kosovo's war.
The European Union, which Montenegro wants to join, has increased pressure on the Balkan country to do more to prosecute war crimes.
The European Commission's latest report on progress for Montenegro's bid to join the bloc said Podgorica needed to "step up its efforts... to fight impunity for war crimes".
The former Yugoslav republic has to be "more proactive" in investigating, prosecuting, trying and punishing war crimes, it added in the report published earlier this week.