Belgrade Book Fair – a place to promote war criminals
At this year’s Book Fair, the „Defence“ Media Centre, publishing organ of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), will again present books whose author is Nebojša Pavković, and organise a panel devoted to the NATO Intervention. The panel speakers, beside the retired commanders of the Yugoslav Army (VJ)/Serbian Army (VS), Božidar Delić and Ljubiša Diković, will be Vladimir Lazarević and Vinko Pandurević, both convicted war criminals. The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) points out that by financing and promoting books and public forums where convicts for the most serious crimes are speakers, the MoD are openly treating with contempt the victims of those crimes, and demonstrating a clear adherence to the politics that led to numerous crimes in the former Yugoslavia, and denying the facts established before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
On 11 October 2019, during the annual judicial conference in Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia’s Supreme Court of Cassation presented its “Guidelines for improving court practice in handling compensation claims made by victims of serious crimes during criminal proceedings” (“Guidelines”). The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) views the “Guidelines” as a step forward in improving the situation of victims in Serbia, and calls on the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor (OWCP) to take a more active part in gathering the evidence needed for the adjudication of compensation claims, and for the courts to adjudicate compensation claims in the course of criminal proceedings whenever possible. 