Sorry, this entry is only available in srpski.
Sorry, this entry is only available in srpski.
The trial of Milan Lukić, Oliver Krsmanović, Dragutin Dragićević and Djordje Šević, who are accused of a war crime against the civilian population under Article 142 of the Criminal Code, opened before the Belgrade District Court on 20 January 2003. Lukić and Krsmanović are being tried in absentia. Known as the “Sjeverin Case” after the village that was home to the victims, the trial is generally seen as a test for the Serbian judiciary and its ability to see that justice is done.
Sorry, this entry is only available in srpski.
On 11 October this year, the Military Court in Niš, central Serbia, handed down the first ruling in a case of a war crime committed during the armed conflict in Kosovo. The Court based its judgment on the confessions of Danilo Tešić and Mišel Seregi, formerly soldiers of the Yugoslav Army, to killing two unidentified Kosovo Albanian civilians and burning their bodies, and a statement made by Capt Rade Radojević during the investigation that the murders were ordered by a senior military security officer, Lt Col Zlatan Mančić. Mančić was sentenced to seven years, Capt Radojević to five years, and Tešić and Seregi to three years in prison respectively.
The District Court in Prizren on 4 September 2002 acquitted for lack of evidence Kosovo Serb Sasa Grkovic of several counts of war crimes against the civilian population. The decision of the panel, made up of two international and one local judge, was unanimous.
The Humanitarian Law Center is pleased to note that the recent conviction of Ivan Nikolic puts an end to the longstanding practice of allowing war crimes to go unpunished. On 8 July this year, the District Court in Prokuplje found Nikolic (30), a former Yugoslav Army reservist, guilty of killing two Kosovo Albanian civilians, Vlaznimi Emini and Bahri Emini, near Penduh village in Kosovo on 24 May 1999 and sentenced him to eight years in prison.