SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnia's war crimes court on Monday acquitted the wartime commander of Srebrenica, who was accused of committing atrocities during the 1992-95 Balkan conflict.

Naser Oric was accused of war crimes against three Serb prisoners of war who had been murdered in villages around Srebrenica in the early days of the conflict. A panel of judges presiding over the trial ruled Monday the prosecution did not present evidence proving the case against Oric.

Oric is seen as a hero by many Muslim Bosnians for his role in defending Srebrenica where some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred by Serb forces in 1995. The massacre is the only episode of Bosnia's war to be defined as genocide by two U.N. courts.

However, Serbs continue to claim the 1995 Srebrenica slaughter was an act of revenge by uncontrolled troops because they say soldiers under Oric's command killed thousands of Serbs in the villages surrounding the eastern town.

Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik said Monday that Oric's acquittal proved that there was no justice for Serbs.

He called on Serb judges and prosecutors to abandon their posts in Bosnia's top court and prosecution office and urged all Bosnian Serb political representatives "to gather around the cause of declaring the (two institutions) illegitimate."

Oric had previously been tried by a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he was also acquitted in 2008.

Bosnian war pitted the country's three main ethnic factions — Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims — against each other after Bosnia split from what was then Yugoslavia. More than 100,000 people were killed in Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II before a peace deal was brokered in 1995.