(srpski) CRNOGORSKO PRAVOSUĐE JOŠ NE REAGUJE NA RATNE ZLOČINE: Veo ćutanja oko napada na Dubrovnik
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The practice of international criminal tribunals has set the standard for prosecuting rape and sexual violence in war. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have recognised that such acts, when committed in the context of a systematic and widespread attack against the civilian population, may qualify as crimes against humanity.
A crime against humanity is a criminal offence that includes serious acts such as murder, persecution, torture, rape, etc, committed as part of a systematic and widespread attack on the civilian population. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can also be committed in peacetime. To date, no person has been charged with this crime before Serbian courts.
By August 2024, 68 war crimes proceedings were conducted and finalised before the Higher Court in Belgrade as a court of first instance and the Court of Appeal in Belgrade as a court of second instance. In these proceedings, 95 persons were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to twenty years for war crimes against civilians and war crimes against prisoners of war. The purpose of war crimes trials is to establish a complete factual picture in order to individualise the guilt of persons charged with criminal offences, adequately punish those found guilty, and achieve justice for victims. Therefore, identifying aggravating and mitigating circumstances for deciding the length of prison sentences proves to be particularly significant.
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The Humanitarian Law Center is organizing an international conference titled “Prosecuting War Crimes in the Countries of the Former Yugoslavia – A Twenty-Year Review” to evaluate the results of the trials so far and provide concrete recommendations for improving these processes, especially in the area of prosecuting sexual war crimes and the position of victims in legal proceedings.
The societal repercussions of historical revisionism, the media’s glorification of convicted war criminals, and the relativization of judicially established facts will also be discussed during the conference.
This is the first conference in over a decade that brings together war crimes prosecutors, judges, ministry representatives, victims’ families, NGOs, and the media from the region for a discussion and analysis of the prosecution of war crimes in the courts of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. The organizer of the conference, the Humanitarian Law Center, is the only organization that has been continuously monitoring and analyzing war crimes trials in Serbia since the first trial.
Between September 1991 and August 1992, several camps and transit centers existed on the territory of Serbia for captured fighters and civilians from Croatia. In these facilities, detainees were subjected to daily psychological and physical abuse.
The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) recalls that on this day 33 years ago, Croatian forces and civilians were detained and taken to the camp at the “Livade” farm in the village of Stajićevo near Zrenjanin (Serbia), which was established by the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA). This occurred after the JNA, the Serbian Territorial Defense (TO) of Vukovar, and paramilitary units from Serbia captured Vukovar on November 18, 1991. Besides Stajićevo, detainees were sent to camps in Sremska Mitrovica, Aleksinac, and Niš, as well as to the Military Investigative Prison in Belgrade and the camp in Begejci, which had been operational since September. All those camps except the one in Niš, which was under the responsibility of the JNA’s 3rd Military District, were under the jurisdiction of the 1st Military District. The camps were guarded by members of the JNA Military Police.
This Wednesday, November 20, 2024, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) commemorates the victims of the crime committed at the Ovčara farm near Vukovar. On this day 33 years ago, members of the local Territorial Defense (TO) and Serbian volunteers under the command of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) killed 265 Croatian civilians and prisoners of war.
As soon as they took control of Vukovar on November 20, 1991, members of the JNA removed the wounded, the sick, civilians, and members of the Croatian armed forces from the Vukovar hospital and transported them to the hangars at the Ovčara farm, located about five kilometers southeast of Vukovar. In the presence of members of the JNA Military Police, the Croatians detained at Ovčara were beaten, abused, and humiliated by members of the Vukovar TO and the “Leva Supoderica” paramilitary unit. In the evening, on the orders of Colonel Mile Mrkšić, JNA troops withdrew from Ovčara, leaving the detainees at the mercy of the Vukovar TO and the “Leva Supoderica” unit. During the night of November 20/21, 1991, the detainees were taken from the hangar in groups of 10 to 20 people to the Grabovo site, where they were executed in front of a pre-dug mass grave. The victims killed at Ovčara included wounded members of the Croatian armed forces, as well as civilians, including two women and three minors: Ružica Markobašić (32), who was heavily pregnant at the time, Janja Podhorski (60), Dragutin Balog (17), Igor Kačić (16), and Tomislav Baumgertner (17).
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