Posts Written By: hlcadmin

Ministry Stronger than Any Court or Law: Families of Victims from Sjeverin Still Deprived of their Legal Rights

On receiving the order of the Administrative Court to decide once more on the request filed by Rasim Pecikoza, the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs again refused to grant him, as a family member of a civilian victim of war, the right to a monthly cash benefit, and explained this decision by stating that this right cannot be granted to a victim who died outside the territory of Serbia. The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), which represents Rasim Pecikoza, holds that the Ministry has acted in violation of the law and contrary to the positions taken by the Administrative and Constitutional Courts, thus placing itself above judicial institutions, and has confirmed its earlier intention to deprive the greatest number of civilian victims of war in Serbia of their legally guaranteed rights. The HLC will again seek, in this case and in other similar cases, protection before the Administrative Court on behalf of the plaintiffs.

HLC Reported to UN Human Rights Committee on the Situation in Serbia

As part of its 119^th session scheduled to take place from March 6^th until March 29^th, 2017, the UN Human Rights Committee (Committee) will discuss the third periodical report by Serbia on the application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (International Covenant). The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) has sent a report to the Committee on the situation in Serbia and the progress made since the previous reporting cycle in 2011.

In its Report the HLC has focused on the respect for the right to life, the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhumane and humiliating treatment or punishment, and the right to an effective remedy (contained in Articles 2, 6 and 7 of the International Covenant), and concentrated on the list of additional issues that the Committee sent to Serbia regarding the third periodical report and the responses Serbia has given in that regard.

(srpski) Optuženi za Kravice negiraju krivicu, porodice ne veruju srpskom pravosuđu

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(srpski) Toponimi državnog zločina

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(srpski) Nemanja Stjepanović otkriva za NEWSWEEK: Ko su ljudi iz državnog vrha koji su “zakopavali” zločine na Kosovu

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Criminal Complaint for Crime at Golo Brdo in 1993

On January 31^st, 2017, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) filed a criminal complaint with the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor for a crime against prisoners of war committed against members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in July 1993, at Golo Brdo on Mount Igman in Bosnia.

The complaint was filed against the then Commander of the Republic of Srpska Army (VRS) Igman Brigade Quick Reaction Unit, Miroslav Škorić, and five identified and a number of unidentified members of the VRS.

After taking control of Golo Brdo on July 17^th, 1993, members of the VRS Igman Brigade Quick Reaction Unit, under the command of Miroslav Škorić, detained four members of the Army of BiH in two bunkers. They immediately killed Robert Kahrimanović, and took the remaining three prisoners to the base of Mount Igman, not far from Blažuj, where they were met by the former Commander of the Quick Reaction Unit, Branislav Gavrilović. On Gavrilović’s orders, two of the prisoners, Živko Krajišnik and Rusmir Hamalukić, were killed, whilst the fourth prisoner, Perica Koblar, was taken to the Military Police HQ in Blažuj and handed over to members of the VRS. Koblar spent seven days in prison in Blažuj, where he endured torture on a daily basis. After seven days in prison, Koblar was released.

Perica Koblar testified about this event for two days before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in the Vojislav Šešelj case (Koblar testified in this case on June 10^th and 11^th, 2008). No one has been prosecuted in Serbia for this crime to date.

Unpunished Concealment of more than 900 Bodies in Mass Graves in Serbia

On Tuesday, January 31^st, 2017, the HLC presented its eighth dossier in a row about unprosecuted crimes and possiblel perpetrators. The Dossier “The cover-up of evidence of crimes during the war in Kosovo: Concealment of Bodies Operation” shows how the operation of concealing the bodies of Albanians killed during the war in Kosovo in 1999 was planned and executed, and which civilian, military and police institutions were involved in it. The objective of the Dossier is to point to the perpetrators of the concealment of one of the most serious crimes in Kosovo, to enable the citizens of Serbia to hear about the crimes committed in their name, and to encourage witnesses to come out with their knowledge about these events and help the search for the more than a thousand bodies of Albanian civilians who were killed during the conflict in Kosovo and who are still reported as missing.

Dossier: “The cover-up of evidence of crimes during the war in Kosovo: THE CONCEALMENT OF BODIES OPERATION”

Since 2001, mass graves containing the bodies of 941 Kosovo Albanians, mainly civilians killed outside combat situations in Kosovo during 1999, have been found on four locations in Serbia. 744 bodies of Kosovo Albanians have been discovered in Batajnica, on the outskirts of Belgrade, at least 61 in Petrovo Selo, and 84 at Lake Perućac. At least 52 bodies have been subsequently found in the mass grave at Rudnica.

(srpski) Zašto je Vučiću potrebno da ga hvali ratni zločinac?

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Bar Association of Belgrade Abuses Public Powers

On January 19^th, 2017, the Steering Committee of the Bar Association of Belgrade (BAB) denied the request filed by the former War Crimes Prosecutor, Mr. Vladimir Vukčević, for registration in the Directory of Attorneys-at-Law, assessing that he is unworthy of membership. The Steering Committee of the Bar Association of Belgrade stated that, as the War Crimes Prosecutor, he did not engage in his duty professionally, and also criticized him for allegedly not prosecuting sufficiently the cases in which Serbs were victims and for allegedly allowing the Founder of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), Ms. Nataša Kandić, to take „absolute power in the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor“. The HLC points out that this Decision rendered by the Steering Committee of the BAB in its capacity of public authority is illegal and that such an interpretation of „worthiness“ represents explicit pressure on the current and future representatives of this independent profession.