HLC Demands that Slobodan Borisavljević be Removed from Ministry of Interior and Filed Criminal Charges Against Him

On 23 January 2006 the Humanitarian Law Center demanded that the Republic of Serbia Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica remove the War Crimes Investigation Department Chief from the Ministry of Interior (MUP). The HLC also filed criminal charges with the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office against Borisavljević because there is reasonable doubt that in the period from 1 January 1999 to 20 June 1999 he abetted the commission of war crimes against civilian population as per Article 142 Paragraph 1 of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Criminal Code (CC FRY) in conjunction with Article 24 of the CC FRY.

In the letter written by the Humanitarian Law Center Executive Director, Nataša Kandić says to the Serbian Prime Minister that the Republic of Serbia Government obliged to the citizens of Serbia and International Community to establish the rule of law in Serbia, build responsible institutions, and respect human rights. Because of this, the fact that Slobodan Borisavljević was appointed Chief of the War Crimes Investigation Department in the MUP makes a mockery out of the aforementioned values and a serious obstacle for establishing responsibility and justice for the crimes committed during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

The HLC alleged in the criminal charges that, in the period from 1 January 1999 to 20 June 1999, Slobodan Borisavljević was the Chief of Cabinet for the Serbian Deputy Minister of Interior and Serbian MUP Public Security Department Chief Vlastimir Đorđević. As a person who held such positions, Borisavljević abetted Đorđević and other persons commit several crimes they were charged with before the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia. Nebojša Pavković, Vladimir Lazarević, Vlastimir Đorđević, Sreten Lukić, Slobodan Milošević, Milan Milutinović, Nikola Šainović, Vlajko Stojiljković, and other identified and unidentified persons are indicted before the Hague Tribunal for instigating and supporting the killing of hundreds of Albanian civilians in Kosovo in the period from 1 January 1999 to 20 June 1999, which was committed by the FRY and Serbian forces. Those killings were carried out systematically throughout Kosovo and resulted in the deaths of many men, women, and children. In the mass graves located in Batajnica, Petrovo Selo, and Perućac over 800 corpses of the killed Albanian civilians were found and Serbian MUP created concealed mass graves in Serbia in order to conceal the traces of war crimes committed in Kosovo.

Reasonable doubt that Borisavljević was involved in the commission of war crimes in Kosovo is mainly based on the written statement, which Slobodan Borisavljević made on 23 May 2001 upon the request of Captain Dragan Karleuša, who was the Chief of the Serbian MUP Work Group that investigated the case of the cool storage found in the Danube River with corpses in it. That statement was forwarded as a document to the Hague Tribunal and presented in the trial of Slobodan Milošević.

Slobodan Borisavljević described in this statement how they obtained information on the cool storage in the Danube, how corpses were transferred to Batajnica, who were the labourers who took the corpses out of the cool storage, loaded them on a truck and buried in the mass graves. Borisavljević said that those labourers were paid from the Serbian MUP budget for special purposes. He also stated that three meetings were organized – one with the FRY President Slobodan Milošević, one with the Minister of Police Vlajko Stojiljković, and one in the building where the SPS Main Board was located. In these meetings the orders and tasks for concealing traces of the war crimes committed in Kosovo were given.

There are numerous facts proving that Slobodan Borisavljević was aware of all plans for killing Albanian civilians, concealing their corpses, transferring them to Belgrade in a cool storage, throwing the cool storage in the Danube, transferring the corpses from the cool storage into the mass grave in Batajnica, and creating several mass gravesites at three locations. Because of this, the Humanitarian Law Center demands from the Republic of Serbia Government that the prompt procedure for his removal from the Republic of Serbia MUP be initiated and from the War Crimes Prosecutor that investigation on Slobodan Borisavljević for abetting the war crime against civilian population be opened.