HLC in the media /
Beta: Natasa Kandic: Prosecutor's Office must resolve the issue of indictments
The Serbian and Croatian Prosecutors’ Offices should launch an initiative to address the issue of Serbs indicted or convicted in absentia for war crimes in Croatia, said today the HLC executive director Nataša Kandic.
Kandic said it when addressing a consultation with the veterans, refugees and displaced about the initiative for the establishment of a Regional Commission for establishing the facts about war crimes in the former Yugoslavia (RECOM).
A representative of the Association for the displaced and convicted in Croatia in 1991, Janko Radmanovic, said that Serbia is not a war criminal, but that Croatia is and that for years he has been living in a "political cage" in Serbia.
Radmanovic, who is a retired military officer, said that the Zagreb County Court sentenced him in absentia to 15 years for war crimes committed in Croatia and that verdict is final.
He said that in Serbia there is no understanding for the problem of people in Croatia who were indicted or convicted, of which, he said, there are 700, while there are 1,200 people on the list of the Interpol Office in Zagreb.
"We must insist that representatives of the authorities - the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor and the Serbian and Croatian State Attorney's office - agree on resolving this issue," said Kandic, adding that she believes that they will find a solution and that the Croatian Prosecutor's Office to reconsider the indictment.
The present consultation was attended by representatives of many associations of veterans of the wars of the 1990s, associations of refugees, displaced, kidnapped and disappeared during the wars in the former Yugoslavia who have provided support to the initiative for the establishment of RECOM.
Natasa Kandic the participants stressed the importance of establishing the facts about war crimes and to know the details of all the victims of the wars in the 1990s.
She pointed out that in the Balkans there had never been any interest in determining the exact number of victims and for this reason non-governmental organizations in the region had begun researching and compiling a list of names of the victims.
"The Humanitarian Law Center will, by the end of this year, finish a name-by-name list of casualties, killed and missing in Kosovo," said Kandic, adding that the greatest pity is that the exact number of Roma victims in Kosovo will never be known because of their frequent moving from one place to another.