Bosnia's war crimes court on Wednesday sentenced a former Bosnian Serb police chief to 14 years in prison for his role in the killing of Muslim civilians during the 1992-1995 siege of Sarajevo.

Goran Saric was "found guilty of crimes against humanity for his role in the expulsion, illegal detention and execution of Muslim civilians" in June and July 1992, judge Mira Smajlovic said as she pronounced the verdict.

Thousands of mourners silently lined Sarajevo's avenues on Tuesday as three trucks carried the remains of 409 newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre to their final resting place.

The convoy was taking the coffins to the small village of Potocari near Srebrenica, where the victims will be buried in a ceremony on Thursday -- on the 18th anniversary of Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

The top leader of one of Bosnia's two semi-autonomous entities, the Muslim-Croat federation, and 18 other people were arrested on Friday in a wide anti-corruption probe, judicial sources said.

Zivko Budimir, Bosnian Croat president of the Muslim-Croat federation which together with Serb-run Republika Srpska make up post-war Bosnia, was arrested in the action, prosecutor's spokesman Boris Grubesic said.

Bosnia's National Museum, founded in the 19th century and home to a famed 600-year old Jewish manuscript known as the Sarajevo Haggadah, closed its doors indefinitely Thursday due to political disputes and a lack of funding.

"Such a complex institution cannot function by improvisations. The authorities must provide the funds for employees' salaries and functioning costs," museum manager Adnan Busuladzic said.

Leaders of Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Muslim and Jewish communities Sunday made a pressing call for peace from Bosnia which was the scene of the worst atrocities committed in Europe since World War II.

Stressing the "commitment of Serb people to the strengthening of peace" Serb Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej said he wished that the future of peoples in the Balkans be "freed from the tragic and painful experiences of the past."

In Bosnia, one of a handful of European countries with a Muslim majority population, Smail "Smajo" Krivic keeps a once-banned tradition alive during the holy month of Ramadan.

"He's here!" children cry, crowding around the 59-year-old as he arrives in Sarajevo's old town where he is the official Ramadan gunner who fires a cannon to signal the end of the daily dawn-to-dusk fast.

The Bosnian war crimes court on Friday handed down its stiffest sentence yet when it jailed a former elite Bosnian Serb soldier for 43 years for his part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Stanko Kojic, a member of the Bosnian Serb 10th Sabotage Detachment, was convicted of crimes against humanity for taking part in the notorious July 16 killing of hundreds of people over more than five hours at the Branjevo military farm.

Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic went on trial Wednesday accused of carrying out a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing and Europe's worst massacre since World War II.

Mladic's trial opened at the Yugoslav war crimes court in The Hague, also watched in a live broadcast in Sarajevo by widows and other relatives of victims of the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica where almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were allegedly murdered by Mladic's forces.

Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic went on trial Wednesday accused of carrying out a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing, including Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

"Ratko Mladic assumed the mantle of the criminal goal of ethnically cleansing Bosnia," prosecutor Dermot Groome told the judges at the Yugoslav war crimes court in The Hague.

Judges trying ex-Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic turned down Thursday a prosecution bid to hold two separate trials, the first focusing on the Srebrenica massacre.

"The Trial Chamber today denied the Prosecution's request to sever the indictment against Ratko Mladic," a statement said, upholding a challenge filed by Mladic's lawyer Branko Lukic against the prosecution bid.