Criminal charges for crimes in Skabrnja and Nadin

On November 21, 2017, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) filed a criminal complaint with the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor (WCP) against six identified and several unidentified members of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) and Territorial Defense Unit (TO), for the killings of 48 Croatian civilians in the villages of Skabrnja and Nadin (Croatia) in November 1991.

Namely, on November 18, 1991, together with the Benkovac TO, the JNA entered the village of Skabrnja in the municipality of Zadar. After entering the village, they destroyed the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After that, 41 Croat civilians were killed in various locations in Skabrnja. The next day, in the nearby Nadin, seven more civilians were killed.

The killings at both locations were conducted to the same pattern: civilians who were found in their houses were brought outside with curses and insults, where JNA and TO members killed them from close-up. Most of the victims were elderly persons, among them 16 women, one of whom was disabled.

Milan Martic, the then Minister of the Interior of the Serb Autonomous District of Krajina (SAO Krajina), and Milan Babic, the then President of the SAO Krajina, were sentenced to several years in prison for crimes committed in the villages of Skabrnja and Nadin, before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Before the courts in Serbia, however, not one JNA or TO member has been found responsible for these crimes.