(srpski) “Politika” da istraži posledice masovnih kršenja ljudskih prava počinjenih od institucija Srbije tokom 90-ih
Sorry, this entry is only available in srpski.
Sorry, this entry is only available in srpski.
Sorry, this entry is only available in srpski.
On June 12th, 2015, the Humanitarian Law Center filed a misdemeanour charge against the Minister of Defence, Bratislav Gašić, because of the unlawful labeling of the archive of the 37th Yugoslav Army Motorized Brigade (37th VJ MtBr) with the highest level of secrecy of data. The HLC maintains that the Minister of Defence has violated the Data Secrecy Law and that his actions are intended to make it impossible to clarify all of the circumstances relating to the killings of the Kosovo Albanians whose bodies were found in the Rudnica mass grave.
The President of the Higher Court in Belgrade prohibited the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) from recording the public announcement of the first instance judgment in the Beli Manastir Case, without offering valid reasons for such a decision. This decision of the President of the Court represents a continuation of the practice of courts in Serbia of limiting public access to war crimes trials, thus significantly diminishing chances for a social dialogue and dealing with the crimes committed during 1990’s.
The Court of Appeals in Belgrade has rendered a ruling (available only in Serbian) upholding the appeal filed by Stjepan Oskomić against the judgment of the Basic Court in Belgrade in the lawsuit against the Republic of Serbia, on account of of the responsibility of the state in the murder of his parents, a crime committed in July 1993 in the village of Kukujevci, and has remanded the case for a new trial. The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), in its capacity of representative of Stjepan Oskomić in this lawsuit, holds that the ruling of the Court of Appeals is just and in accordance with the law, and that it clearly points to the errors in the actions of the first instance court in the case at hand, which has been pending for nine years now.
On 6 April 2015, the Trial Chamber of the War Crimes Department of the Higher Court in Belgrade (the Chamber) rendered a judgment finding Žarko Čubrilo not guilty of a war crime against civilians committed in the first half of July 1991 in Tenja (Republic of Croatia). The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) points out that the decision of the Chamber is based on an erroneous interpretation of key pieces of evidence and a disregard of the most important sections of the statements by eye-witnesses.
In 2000, the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia announced the publication of „The Heroes of the Fatherland,“ a valuable, though incomplete, record of military victims in connection with the war in Kosovo. The record includes the names of military war victims – 275 members of the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and Serbia’s Ministry of the Interior (MUP) – who were killed in NATO attacks on the territory of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo..
In an interview given on March 5, 2015 to the daily newspaper ‘Novosti’ [*available only in Serbian], the War Crimes Prosecutor of the Republic of Serbia Vladimir Vukčević stated that Momir Stojanović, former Chief of Staff of the Military Security Department of the Priština Corps of the Yugoslav Army (VJ), does not appear as even a “possible perpetrator” of war crimes in the investigation into the crimes committed in Meje/Mejës (Kosovo) conducted by the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor (OWCP). Referring to the arrest warrants issued by Interpol for 17 individuals suspected of having committed war crimes in the Đakovica/Gjakova municipality in Kosovo, Vukčević also claimed that the OWCP does not know what evidence the warrants were based on, but that he is ready to verify the evidence obtained by EULEX.
On Friday, February 27th, 2015, it will be 22 years since the abduction and murder of 20 passengers on the train travelling from Belgrade to Bar. The Women in Black, Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Sandžak Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) will organize a Peace Action entitled ‘Truth – Accountability – Justice’ in front of the main entrance to Belgrade Railway Station, in order to remind the public of this crime, and to call on the institutions of Serbia to prosecute all the individuals responsible, find the locations with the mortal remains of the victims, and provide their families with dignified satisfaction and acknowledgement.
February 18, 2015 marks the 22nd anniversary since the Yugoslav Army’s attack on the village of Kukurovici near Priboj, where the elderly Uzeir Bulutovic, Musan Husovic and Fatima Sarac were killed. To date, the institutions have not identified the perpetrators, nor have the victims’ families received the status of civilian victims of war.