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.
On April 23rd 2015 the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) presented the Model Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes Committed during and in relation to the Armed Conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia (Model Strategy).
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 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.
General Ljubiša Diković appeared on the Pink TV show Teška Rečon February 2, 2015, after the “Rudnica File” had been made public, only to deny his responsibility for the war crimes committed in Kosovo and to accuse the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) of running a “smear campaign” against him personally and against the entire Army of the Republic of Serbia. General Diković claimed he had never “planned, organized, participated, or in any way instigated the commitment of war crimes.”
The Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor (OWCP) informed the public on Friday, January 30th, 2015 that it has requested from the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) the „entire documentation relating to the Rudnica Case“. The OWCP stated that 53 bodies have been identified at the Rudnica location so far, on the basis of which pre-trial proceedings have been launched, adding that they are requesting the documents from the HLC for the purpose of gathering further information on the crimes, which were, according to the allegations of the HLC, committed by members of the Yugoslav Army and Ministry of the Interior in April and May 1999“. The OWCP also reminded the general public that in January 2012 they established, on the basis of an inspection of the HLC’s allegations, that there were no grounds for the suspicion that General Ljubiša Diković was responsible for the war crimes alleged in the Ljubiša Diković Dossier.
On January 29, 2015 the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) presented the “Rudnica” Dossier. The Dossier offers an insight into the evidence on four crimes committed in April and May 1999 in Kosovo by members of the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and the Ministry of the Interior (MUP), the victims of which were Kosovo Albanian civilians whose bodies were exhumed from the mass grave in Rudnica, as well as to present the evidence which points to those who participated in the operations of transporting and concealing the bodies at secret locations for 15 years.
At the time of the publication of this Dossier (January 2015), the mortal remains of 52 people were exhumed from Rudnica and identified. DNA analysis conducted on the remains has shown that they belong to Kosovo Albanians killed during the Kosovo conflict in 1999. According to a representative of the Commission on Missing Persons of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, search of the Rudnica site will continue if the relevant institutions come up with new data.