BELGRADE: An unprecedented joint investigation by former foes Serbia and Bosnia culminated Friday in the arrests of 15 people suspected of kidnapping and murdering nearly two dozen Serbs in an attack during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, officials said. The arrests over the 1993 attack on a train transporting Serbs along the border with Bosnia took place in coordinated raids in both jurisdictions.

“Five people have been arrested in Serbia on suspicion of committing a war crime in the village of Strpci,” Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told AFP.

In a separate statement, Bosnia’s war crimes prosecutor said 10 people had been arrested there in connection with the same case.

He said the suspects included “high-ranking military officials from the Bosnian Serb Army of the time as well as perpetrators involved in the brutal torture and execution of the victims.”

On February 27, 1993, a train traveling between Serbia and Montenegro was stopped by a Serbian paramilitary group as it passed through the Bosnian village of Strpci, located just across the border.

At the time, Serbia and Montenegro were still part of federal Yugoslavia.

The gunmen forced off 20 of the Serbian passengers, most of whom were Muslim.

The hostages were taken to the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad, where they were tortured, killed and their bodies dumped in the Drina river, the natural border between Bosnia and Serbia.

To date only one person has been convicted over the killings. Nebojsa Ranisavljevic was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2004.