BELGRADE (AFP) – Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor demanded yesterday a formal investigation into a former Gestapo officer living in the US who is suspected of killing thousands of civilians during World War II. “We filed a demand for investigation on Peter Egner, currently residing in the United States, to a district court in Belgrade,” the prosecutor’s spokesman, Bruno Vekaric, told AFP. Egner, 86, a native of Yugoslavia who now lives in Seattle, “is suspected of war crimes and genocide, as well as of supporting such crimes,” Vekaric said. The prosecutor charges that as a Gestapo officer in 1941 and 1942 Egner set up and worked in several concentration camps in Belgrade and was involved in the executions of Jews and other civilians, among them women and children. Serbian media reported that Egner was responsible for the death of about 17,000 civilians.

BUCHAREST (AFP) – Authorities in the Romanian town of Brasov are planning to install ultrasound devices to chase away bears, which have been making increasing forays into town, the environment ministry said yesterday. The devices will be installed around the town center at first and will later spread to other vulnerable neighborhoods within a 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) perimeter, the ministry added. “It’s a pilot project that we will then be able to implement in other tourist locations that are at risk,” said Environment Minister Attila Korodi. Bears have been increasingly venturing into town in the past few years, leading to several deadly attacks.

ISTANBUL (AP) – A Turkish news agency says a soldier died from injuries sustained in a car bombing by Kurdish rebels last week. Dogan news agency said yesterday that the soldier died after eight days at a hospital near Turkey’s Aegean coast, where a car bomb last week injured 16 people, mostly police officers and soldiers. Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a Kurdish militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Nobel Prize-winning Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk published a new book in Turkey yesterday, his first since obtaining the award. “Museum of Innocence” is a love story about a rich man and his poor, distant relative set in present-day Istanbul, Pamuk’s native city, his publisher Nihat Tuna told Reuters. Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize in 2006, is a controversial writer in Turkey despite his popularity and big sales. He was tried for comments about the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I – a highly sensitive issue for Turkey – and decades-long fighting between Kurdish separatists and the Turkish army in southeastern Turkey. His case was dropped, but some anger over his remarks lingered. The first foreign-language edition, in German, will be available within 10 days. An English translation is in the works, Tuna said. (Reuters)

Turkish police yesterday detained 21 people in Istanbul in an operation against the Islamic militant group al-Qaida, state Anatolian news agency said. The detainees are believed to have trained in Afghanistan and were planning to carry out attacks, it said. No more details were provided. (Reuters)

Bulgaria signed an agreement with Japan yesterday to borrow 36.9 billion yen (230 million euros, 339 million dollars) for the construction of new container terminals at two Black Sea ports, the Bulgarian finance ministry said. The loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation will be used by the Bulgarian government to co-finance the construction of new container terminals at Bulgaria’s two major ports of Varna and Burgas, stated. Bulgaria’s government will provide the remaining 110 million euros for the project from its budget, the ministry added. (AFP)