Action Plan for Chapter 23 and the National Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes – dead letters

More than a year after the adoption of the  Action Plan for Chapter 23 (Action Plan), the provisions of this document relating to the prosecution of war crimes are being carried out superficially, for merely ”cosmetic” purposes, and many of the prescribed activities are not being carried out at all. The situation is the same when it comes to the implementation of the National Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes (National Strategy). It must therefore be said that the state authorities responsible for the implementation of the above provisions of the Action Plan and  National Strategy are falsely informing the public about their work, and continually making it difficult for the civil society to access relevant information and monitor their work. The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) believes that such behaviour is contrary to the obligations of the accession negotiations with the EU, and is an indicator of Serbia’s lack of commitment to the reform process, as well as sincere effort to prosecute war crimes more efficiently.

(srpski) Ratovi devedesetih nisu mentalno završeni

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State obstructing War Crimes Trials

The Court of Appeals in Belgrade has dismissed (available in Serbian) the indictment filed against eight members of a Special Brigade of the Republic of Srpska Ministry of the Interior, accused of killing 1,313 civilians from Srebrenica in the Kravice hangar on July 14^th, 1995 (Srebrenica – Kravica Case), with the explanation that the indictment was not filed by an authorized prosecutor. The Humanitarian Law Center thinks such a decision represents an inadmissible failure of the local judiciary, which will further jeopardize the process of war crimes trials, already deemed to be too slow.

(srpski) Tužilac Ilić o odbacivanju optužnice za Srebrenicu: Državni organ je tužilaštvo, a ne tužilac

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Invitation to Attend Presentation of Report „Judging with impunity: The role of prosecutors and judges in show trials of Kosovo Albanians in the period 1998-2000 “

The Humanitarian Law Center will present the Report titled „ Judging with impunity: The role of prosecutors and judges in show trials of Kosovo Albanians in the period 1998-2000“, on Tuesday, July 25th, 2017. The presentation will take place in the Great Hall of the Media Center in Belgrade (Terazije nr. 3, II floor) at 11:00.

(srpski) Preko Drine

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(srpski) FHP: Srbija isporučila Srebreničane Mladićevim ubicama

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(srpski) Sud u Beogradu odbacio optužnicu za zločine za Srebrenici

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School of transitional justice: knowledge leads to recognition

A public lecture on the court-established facts about the genocide in Srebrenica, held on July 11th in Belgrade, marked the end of the 8th Transitional Justice School of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC).

This year’s School of Transitional Justice was held with the support of the Heinrich Boll Foundation in Belgrade. It was attended by students of law, political science, economics, history, and security, and activists from human rights organizations, youth workers, lawyer and court interns. Over the past few weeks they have gained knowledge about the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the armed conflicts that followed, the efforts of institutions and non-governmental organizations to provide the victims and societies with recognition and access to justice and truth, the contribution of the Hague Tribunal and domestic judicial processes, and the court-established facts about Operation „Storm“ (Oluja), the siege of Vukovar, and crimes in Kosovo. On these topics, they entered into discussions with historians Radina Vučetić and Marijana Toma, with Ivan Jovanović, an expert on international law, with a professor at the Law School of Union University, Saša Gajin, as well as with the HLC’s researchers.

Dossier: “Deportation of Srebrenica Refugees”

After the fall of Srebrenica on 11 July, 1995, an estimated 7,905 persons disappeared, mostly men considered by the Army of Republika Srpska as “able-bodied”.  DNA analysis of the mortal remains of those found in mass graves, to date, has enabled positive identification of 5,977 persons killed in Srebrenica.

Most of these men were killed between 13 and 16 July 1995, in mass executions at several locations. A day before the fall of the enclave, between ten and sixteen thousand men fled into the forests around Srebrenica, intending to reach the “liberated territory” under the control of the Army of BiH. The search for, capture and killing of these men continued for weeks after the fall of Srebrenica.