The Humanitarian Law Center, who represented the families of those persons executed at Ovčara before the War Crimes Chamber of the Belgrade District Court (hereinafter the War Crimes Chamber), believes that the ICTY Appeals Chamber gave undo trust to a witness in the case.
After five years of trial, the Belgrade Higher Court War Crimes Department trial chamber, presided over by Judge Tatjana Vuković, rendered a judgment on November 22, 2010 which upset human rights defenders and deeply affected and offended families of victims.
On November 25, 2010, the mixed Trial Chamber of the Supreme Court of Kosovo, presided by Justice Martti Harsia, upheld the judgment of the District Court of Peć/Pejë handed down on November 19, 2009 sentencing the accused Idriz Gashi to 14 years in prison for the war crime committed against a civilian.
Family members of victims of the crimes committed against women and children in Suva Reka, Kosovo, who monitored the war crimes trial held before the War Crimes Trial Chamber in Belgrade, agreed to attend the trial believing the assessment of the Humanitarian Law Center that the trial would be fair and professional to a certain extent.
On November 17, 2010 the War Crimes Trial Chamber of the High Court in Belgrade sentenced Darko Radivoj to 10 years in prison for war crimes committed against wounded prisoners of war in Tenja, Croatia.
On November 9, 2010 the mixed Trial Chamber of the District Court of Peć/Pejë, Kosovo, presided by Justice Ingo Risch, sentenced former member of the reserve force of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia (MUP Serbia) Vukmir Cvetković to seven years in prison for committing a war crime against civilian populations, as stipulated in Article 142 of the Criminal Code of Yugoslavia, and as an accomplice to committing such a crime, with respect to Article 22 of the Criminal Code of Yugoslavia.
On November 1, 2010 the War Crimes Trial Department of the High Court in Belgrade sentenced Stanko Vujanović to nine years in prison for war crimes committed against the civilian population in Vukovar, Croatia.
BELGRADE, November 30th, 2011.
The Court of Appeal in Belgrade has rendered a judgment denying the compensation lawsuit filed by the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) on behalf of Munir Šabotić, a victim of torture, which he was subjected to by members of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) in Novi Pazar in August and September 1994. The Court of Appeal accepted the appeal filed by the Office of the Attorney-General of the Republic of Serbia and modified the judgment, which originally had granted Munir Šabotić compensation to the amount of 300,000 RSD and had ordered the Republic of Serbia to pay for litigation expenses to the amount of 20,000 RSD. The HLC believes that the Court of Appeal arbitrarily and unjustly denied the right to compensation for the violation of human rights, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, the laws, and various international conventions. For this reason, the HLC will file a complaint on behalf of Munir Šabotić with the Constitutional Court of Serbia.
On September 16, 2010 the Municipal Court in Peć/Pejë convicted Bekim, Engjell, and Prenk Luli of acts of perjury and sentenced them to suspended jail sentences of five months. In a separate trial, the court convicted Gjerg Luli and Kole Krasniqi of the same crimes. Kole Krasniqi is the only one whose jail sentence was not suspended and must be serevd.