Publisher: Fond za humanitarno pravo

10 godina procesuiranja ratnih zlocina u Srbiji : konture pravde: analiza procesuiranja ratnih zlocina u Srbiji u periodu od 2004. do 2013. godine.

Author(s): / Language(s): Serbian

At the beginning of 2014, the first decade of work of institutions specialized in processing war crimes in Serbia ended. Judging by the scale and nature of the crimes committed in the wars in the territory of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, bringing those responsible for those crimes to justice has had modest results. The lack of interest of institutions in the social process of dealing with the past, as well as their superficial and weak commitment to criminal justice for the past, have made Serbia a state that, on the threshold of EU membership, is an oasis of impunity for thousands of perpetrators. // The War Crimes Chamber of the High Court in Belgrade, the War Crimes Chamber of the Belgrade Court of Appeals, the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office, the High Courts in Prokuplje, Novi Sad, Nis, Požarevac, Leskovac, Kraljevo assisted in the preparation of the Analysis. Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Croatia, Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Croatia, State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, State Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Prosecutor's Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, OSCE Mission Chamber of Serbia, Documenta and others. Representatives of the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Serbia, current and former judges of specialized war crimes chambers at the Higher and Appellate Courts in Belgrade, representatives of the Ministry of Interior, representatives of the Victims and Witnesses Assistance and Support Service, and defense attorneys made key contributions. , representatives of non-governmental organizations, victims, former witnesses from the Program for the Protection of Participants in Criminal Proceedings, legal experts and others. In talks with HLC representatives (Nikola Čukanović, Edmir Veljović, Milomir Matović and Sandra Orlović), they expressed their opinion on many aspects of war crimes prosecution in Serbia, problems in everyday work, good practice, mistakes, possible guidelines for improving work, etc. They all share the belief that a long-term strategy for prosecuting war crimes would contribute to improving the work of individual institutions and the overall results of this important social process.

Bilten tranziciona pravda #1: Suđenja za ratni zločin u Srbiji

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Serbian

Four war crimes trials are under way in Serbia: two for war crimes against Bosniaks, one for war crimes against Albanian prisoners and one for war crimes against Albanian civilians. On December 12, 2005, the War Crimes Chamber of the Republic of Serbia handed down a verdict for war crimes against prisoners of war in the Ovčara case. On December 14, 2006, the Supreme Court of Serbia overturned the verdict of the War Crimes Chamber of the Belgrade District Court and remanded the case for retrial. In addition, the trial of two former reservists of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior for the murder of a Kosovo Albanian during the NATO bombing is underway before the District Court in Nis. Organized by the Humanitarian Law Center, the mentioned trials are monitored by the families of the victims and representatives of the victims' associations. Encouraging witnesses / victims to participate in war crimes trials is also a HLC priority in supporting domestic war crimes trials.

Bilten tranziciona pravda: Presuda Škorpionima je politički motivisana

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Serbian

The verdict of the War Crimes Chamber of the Belgrade District Court against Scorpios accused of killing six Bosniak civilians in Trnovo, BiH, in July 1995, issued on April 10, 2007, is not based on law and facts established during the evidentiary proceedings. It seems that the court was guided by political and not legal reasons, in order to adjust to the attitudes of the Serbian authorities regarding the responsibility for the Srebrenica genocide in the context of the International Court of Justice ruling and show understanding for the patriotic orientations of some Scorpios.

DOSIJE: Deportacija izbeglica iz Srebrenice

Author(s): Milica Kostić / Language(s): Serbian

After the fall of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, an estimated 7,905 people went missing, most of them men considered "capable of military service" by the Republika Srpska Army (VRS) . DNA analysis of the remains found in mass graves has identified 5,977 to date. persons killed in Srebrenica. Most of these men were killed between 13 and 16 July 1995, mostly in mass shootings: at the Kravica warehouse (13 July: between 755 and 1,106 victims), Rahovec / Orahovac (14 July: at least 841 victims). ), at the dam in Petkovci (July 14: at least 815 victims), in Kozluk (July 16: at least 815 victims), at the Branjevo Military Farm (July 16: about 1,200 victims) and at the House of Culture in Pilica (July 16) : about 500 victims). Between 10,000 and 16,000 men fled to the forests around Srebrenica the day before the enclave fell, with the intention of gaining "free territories" under the control of the BiH Army. Search, capture and kill the remaining men lasted for weeks after the fall of Srebrenica. Some of these men crossed into the territory of the FRY. Evidence available to the public at least since 2005 shows that FRY border guards handed over every captured Srebrenica refugee man back to the VRS, contrary to Serbia's international obligations not to extradite persons to their country of origin, in this case BiH, if threatened. real danger to life and health (principle of international law known as non-refoulement).

DOSIJE: JNA u ratovima u Hrvatskoj i BiH

Author(s): Jovana Kolarić / Language(s): Serbian

The topic of the 10th Dossier of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) is the role of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and its transformation from a Yugoslav to a Serbian army. This is the largest HLC file to date, covering the period from the late 1980s until May 1992 and deals with the preparation of the JNA and political structures of SFRY and Serbia for wars, as well as the JNA's participation in conflicts and its contribution to the realization of war goals of the leadership of the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the Republic of Srpska. The Dossier lists and describes in detail examples of military actions from 1991 in which the JNA committed war crimes or prepared the ground for them to be committed by Serb units with which it worked together. Evidence was presented based on documents and witness statements about indiscriminate shelling of Croatian cities (Dubrovnik, Vukovar, Zadar, Šibenik) and attacks on Croatian territories claimed by the Serbian military, during which numerous crimes were committed against Croatian and other non-Serb civilians. occupied territory ethnically cleansed. That part of the Dossier also contains information on places of detention in Croatia and Serbia under the control of the JNA, where crimes against arrested Croats were committed.

DOSIJE: Logori za Hrvate na teritoriji Srbije

Author(s): Jovana Kolarić / Language(s): Serbian

According to the research of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), the largest camp formed in Serbia was in the Penitentiary-Correctional Facility (KPD) Sremska Mitrovica. In addition to this camp, there were also camps in the Banat villages of Begejci and Stajićevo, then in the JNA barracks in Aleksinac and the Penitentiary in Niš. In Serbia, there were also smaller transit camps and centers where detainees stayed for several days, before being transferred to some of the larger camps. Although there were more such places, this file singled out facilities in Šid, the Military Police Training Center in Bubanj Potok and the JNA barracks in Paragovo. All camps, except Nis, which was in the zone of responsibility of the 3rd Military District (VO) of the JNA, were in the zone of responsibility of the 1st VO of the JNA. The camp was secured by members of the JNA Military Police. JNA officers were appointed to the positions of camp commanders, but the Security Directorate of the Federal Secretariat for National Defense (UB SSNO) had real control over the camps. The captured civilians and fighters spent from a couple of days to nine months in the camps. About 7,000 people passed through the camps, and about 3,500 people were kept in them for a long time.

DOSIJE: Operacija Reka.

Author(s): / Language(s): Serbian

On 27 and 28 April 1999, a large-scale joint operation by the Yugoslav Army (VJ) and the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) called »Operation Reka« was conducted in villages west of the town of Gjakova in Kosovo. During the operation, Serb forces killed at least 350 Kosovo Albanian civilians and expelled several thousand to Albania. The bodies of 309 killed were found in 2001 in secret mass graves on the outskirts of Belgrade. The attack by Serb forces on the civilian population in the Reka Valley is the most serious crime committed against civilians during the Kosovo war and one of the largest in the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The dossier points in more detail to the evidence on the role of Momir Stojanović, the current member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and the chairman of the parliamentary Committee for the Control of Security Services, in Operation Reka. In March 2015, Interpol issued a warrant for Stojanović and 16 other people, at the request of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), for crimes committed in this operation.

DOSIJE: Prisilna mobilizacija izbeglica

Author(s): Jovana Kolarić / Language(s): Serbian

The dossier "Forced Mobilization of Refugees" is the twelfth file of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), which aims to provide the public with evidence of systematic and widespread violations of human rights of refugees in Serbia. The dossier is based on more than 500 statements of forcibly mobilized refugees given to HLC researchers during 1997 and 1998 and members of the families of refugees who died or disappeared after being sent to the area of armed conflict; court documents from more than 120 litigation before the courts in Serbia for damages, in which the HLC represented forcibly mobilized refugees or their families; evidence presented before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), as well as documents obtained by the HLC from the Serbian Ministry of the Interior under the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance. The Dossier also used HLC reports on the forced mobilization of refugees published in the 1990s, reports from other domestic and international human rights organizations, as well as media reports.

DOSIJE: Rudnica

Author(s): Sandra Orlović / Language(s): Serbian

The mass grave in Rudnica is the first mass grave in Serbia to be discovered since the end of the ICTY's mandate to investigate crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Three mass graves with the bodies of 889 Kosovo Albanians, mostly civilians, were discovered in the spring of 2001 at three locations in Serbia - in the Belgrade suburb of Batajnica, in Petrovo Selo (eastern Serbia) and near Lake Perucac (western Serbia). In the Sainovic et al. and Djordjevic cases, the ICTY established facts about the circumstances of the killings of most civilians whose remains were exhumed from these three locations. According to ICTY verdicts, these crimes were committed as part of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at establishing effective control of the Serbian authorities over Kosovo by changing the ethnic balance and expelling Albanians from Kosovo. Also, the ICTY found that the key role in transporting and hiding corpses in the mentioned graves was played by the MUP, and that the VJ independently, or in cooperation with the MUP, participated in the collection of corpses in the field. // As no evidence has been presented to the ICTY on the crimes in which civilians found in Rudnica were killed, nor on the circumstances in which their bodies were hidden, the aim of this dossier is to make public information and evidence on the responsibility of VJ and MUP members for killing Kosovo Albanians whose remains were found in Rudnica, as well as data and evidence that indicate the participants in the operation of moving and hiding their bodies in a secret location. // The data used to create this dossier come from two basic sources. The first source is witnesses - survivors, family members of victims and eyewitnesses of crimes who gave statements to the HLC and the HLC Kosovo about the events that preceded the crimes, the circumstances of the crime, the perpetrators, their uniforms, weapons, equipment, removal of victims, etc. Another source is authentic military and police documents presented in the form of evidence in the two mentioned cases before the ICTY.3 These are orders for combat operations, defense, combat control of the territory, "rehabilitation of the battlefield", regular combat reports, control of movements within a certain area, the census of civilians, the deployment of police units in the area, etc. In addition to official documents of the VJ and MUP, the file relies on the testimony of VJ officers and MUP officials before the ICTY, Ministry of Defense newspaper - magazine " Army ", geographical maps and other sources.

DOSIJE: Šljivovica i Mitrovo Polje

Author(s): Ivana Žanić / Language(s): Serbian

After the Republika Srpska Army (VRS) conquered Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, forcibly relocated tens of thousands of civilians from the area and killed more than 7,000 men, it set out to conquer other protected zones in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) - Zepe. After forcibly relocating more than 4,000 civilians from the Zepa enclave, on July 27, 1995, the VRS forced Bosniak representatives from Zepa to sign a capitulation agreement that provided for the surrender of BiH Army soldiers and other "able-bodied people" in Zepa to the VRS. Hearing stories about the crimes committed after the fall of Srebrenica, the men from Žepa fled to Žepa Mountain. During the work on this file, the HLC sent over a hundred requests for access to information of public importance, requesting additional information about the units that participated in the reception of men from Zepa and their deportation to camps, as well as about individual members of these units. In most cases, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Serbia (MoD) and the Ministry of the Interior refused to provide the requested information, citing their secrecy or claiming that they did not have such information. In a number of cases, the MoD and the MUP (mostly police administrations from the interior of Serbia) nevertheless provided the requested information. On the other hand, other state bodies (Institute of Forensic Medicine, Hospitals, Courts, Cemeteries) were more willing to provide the requested information to the HLC. Based on these data and other sources, the HLC determined that some of the persons who participated in the capture and abuse of Bosniaks from Žepa are still in important positions in the institutions of the Republic of Serbia.

DOSIJE: Uklanjanje dokaza o zločinima tokom rata na Kosovu : operacija skrivanja tela

Author(s): Nemanja Stjepanović / Language(s): Serbian

From 2001 until today, mass graves with 941 bodies of Albanians killed in Kosovo in 1999, mostly civilians who died outside the fighting, have been discovered on the territory of the Republic of Serbia. According to the UNMIK Office on Missing Persons and Forensic Medicine (KNLSM), 744 Kosovo Albanian bodies were found in Batajnica near Belgrade, at least 61 bodies in Petrovo Selo, and a mass grave with 84 bodies near Lake Perucac. Subsequently, at least 52 more bodies were discovered in the Rudnica mass grave. From the statements and testimonies of witnesses, as well as from the available documentation from that time, it is evident that the term "remediation of the terrain" was widely used within political, military and police structures to denote illegal removal of corpses and their burial mass graves, with the aim of covering up crimes.

DOSIJE: Zločini nad Hrvatima u Vojvodini

Author(s): Jovana Kolarić / Language(s): Serbian

In the period from 1991 to 1995, a campaign of intimidation and pressure on Croatian civilians was conducted on the territory of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in the Republic of Serbia, with the aim of moving them out of their homes and leaving Serbia. The campaign, which changed in intensity and peaked in the second half of 1991, from the spring to the fall of 1992 and the summer of 1995, resulted in the expulsion of tens of thousands of Croats from Vojvodina. Violence against Croats in Vojvodina included attacks on private property and religious buildings, threats, physical attacks and killings. In the period between the two censuses, in 1991 and 2002, a decrease in the number of Croats and other non-Serbs was noticeable on the territory of Vojvodina. The number of Croats decreased in 39 out of 45 municipalities in Vojvodina, and on the territory of the whole of Vojvodina, the number of Croats decreased by 18,262, ie by 24.41%. This Dossier presents evidence of events in the municipalities of Vojvodina (Ruma, Sid, Stara Pazova, Indjija, Petrovaradin and Apatin) in which the pressure on Croats to emigrate was strongest and in which the ethnic picture changed the most. The dossier is based on statements by witnesses and families of victims given to the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), documents of the Serbian RDB, court rulings in Serbia, documents presented to the ICTY as evidence and media reports.

Drugi IZVEŠTAJ o sprovođenju Nacionalne strategije za procesuiranje ratnih zločina

Author(s): Višnja Šijačić / Language(s): Serbian

The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) has been monitoring and analyzing war crimes trials in Serbia since the first proceedings in the Republic of Serbia in 2002. The HLC is the only organization that does this continuously and informs the domestic and international public about it. In war crimes cases, it represents victims (injured parties) through a proxy, submits criminal charges against suspects to the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office (TRZ) and provides documentation on committed war crimes. The HLC also identifies and encourages witnesses and victims to testify in war crimes cases, thus contributing to the establishment of justice for past crimes. The National Strategy for War Crimes Prosecution (hereinafter: the National Strategy), adopted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia in February 2016, is based, inter alia, on the Strategy Model developed by the HLC. The HLC reports on the implementation of the National Strategy, with the aim of offering independent research findings and conclusions on its implementation during the period of validity of the National Strategy. This is the second such report on the implementation of the National Strategy published by the HLC. The First Report on the Implementation of the National Strategy for War Crimes Prosecution, which was presented by the HLC in December 2017, is also relevant for a complete insight into the implementation of the National Strategy so far.

Fo­rum za tran­zi­ci­o­nu prav­du

Frequency: irregular and other / Country: Serbia

Fulfilling the Right for Victims of Human Rights Abuses to seek Reparation before the Serbian Courts : 2012 Report.

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The obligation of the State to provide adequate financial redress to victims of human rights abuses is defined in numerous international conventions on human rights and is derived from the fundamental legal principle of accepting responsibility for harm done. In most societies that have gone through periods of massive human rights violations, the issue of financial reparations for victims is one of the most important elements of establishing the rule of law and providing justice for crimes committed in the past. Identification of victims, creation of programs suitable for the needs of victims, and ways in which those programs are financed are just a few of the important issues considered by post-conflict societies in their overall effort to provide reparations to victims of human rights violations. // This Report offers a review of 15 cases in which HLC represented victims and which resulted in court decisions in 2012. There were a total of 18 judgments, 12 of which were negative and six positive, which awarded a total of RSD 1.76 million to victims of human rights abuses.

IZVEŠTAJ o suđenjima za ratne zločine u Srbiji tokom 2016. godine

Author(s): Marina Kljaić / Language(s): Serbian

This is the sixth report of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) on war crimes trials in Serbia. During 2016, the HLC legal team monitored all war crimes trials conducted on the territory of Serbia, ie a total of 26 cases before the war crimes departments of the Higher and Appellate Courts in Belgrade, as well as before courts of general jurisdiction. Also, during the reporting period, HLC lawyers represented the victims in four cases before the War Crimes Chamber of the High Court in Belgrade, as well as in two appeal proceedings before the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Appeals in Belgrade. The report pays key attention to the work of the Prosecutor's Office and courts in public parts of court proceedings, and above all to the analysis of indictments and verdicts in individual cases. The work of other bodies involved in the processing of war crimes (War Crimes Investigation Service of the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia, Protection Unit, etc.) cannot be analyzed at the level of individual cases, because there is no publicly available data.

IZVEŠTAJ o suđenjima za ratne zločine u Srbiji tokom 2017. i 2018. godine

Author(s): Marina Kljaić / Language(s): Serbian

During 2017 and 2018, the HLC monitored all war crimes trials that took place on the territory of Serbia, ie a total of 20 cases before the war crimes departments of the Higher and Appellate Courts in Belgrade, as well as one case before a court of general jurisdiction. For all cases, the report provides brief overviews of the proceedings and the HLC's main findings in relation to the case, which are important to the public. A large number of war crimes proceedings processed in this report have been going on for several years, and previous HLC annual reports on trials are relevant for a complete insight into the course of proceedings and findings related to these cases. The report also includes the trial for one crime that the competent prosecutor's office of general jurisdiction did not qualify as a war crime, although all the circumstances of that case indicate that it is a war crime. The report pays key attention to the work of the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office (TRZ) and courts in public parts of court proceedings, and primarily analyzes indictments and verdicts in each individual case. The work of other bodies involved in the processing of war crimes - the War Crimes Investigation Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia (MUP), the Protection Unit, etc., cannot be analyzed at the level of individual cases, because there is no publicly available data.

IZVEŠTAJ o suđenjima za ratne zločine u Srbiji u 2011.

Author(s): / Language(s): Serbian

In 2011, the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Serbia (TRZ) filed indictments against a total of nine persons, all for the criminal offense of War Crimes against Civilians under Art. 142 paragraph 1 of the FRY CC. // In 2011, 13 proceedings were conducted before the War Crimes Chamber of the High Court in Belgrade. Of these, the War Crimes Chamber handed down verdicts in six cases, convicting 17 defendants and acquitting two of them, and the remaining seven proceedings are still pending. // In 2011, the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Appeals in Belgrade issued 11 decisions on appeals against the verdicts of the War Crimes Chamber of the Belgrade High Court, which convicted 12 defendants and overturned the first instance verdicts and returned the cases. on retrial. // In 2011, before the courts of general jurisdiction, two proceedings were conducted for the criminal offense of War Crimes against Civilians under Article 142, Paragraph 1 of the FRY Criminal Code - Kushnin / Kushnin case before the Higher Court in Nis, Orahovac / Rahovec case before The High Court in Pozarevac, and two proceedings for ethnically motivated murders. The case of Oto Palinkaš et al. Was conducted before the High Court in Kraljevo, and the case for ethnically motivated murder in the Emini case was conducted before the High Court in Niš. // Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), in 2011 represented the victims in four cases before the War Crimes Chamber of the High Court in Belgrade - Ćuška / Qushk, Skočić, Zvornik III / IV and Lovas, while HLC observers monitored the main hearings in other proceedings before this court, as well as the main trial in the Kushnin case.

IZVEŠTAJ o suđenjima za ratne zločine u Srbiji u 2012. Godini

Author(s): / Language(s): Serbian

In 2012, 13 proceedings were conducted before the High Court in Belgrade (War Crimes Chamber). The High Court handed down verdicts in seven cases1 in which 37 defendants were convicted and eight defendants acquitted, while the remaining six proceedings are still pending. // In 2012, the Court of Appeals in Belgrade (War Crimes Chamber) rendered four decisions on appeals against the judgments of the Belgrade High Court and the Belgrade Court of Appeals, which convicted four defendants3 and acquitted two defendants. // In 2012, two war crimes proceedings against civilians were conducted before courts of general jurisdiction - the Orahovac/Rahovec case before the Požarevac High Court and the Kushnin case before the Niš High Court. The procedure against Miloš Lukić for the crime of murder is underway before the High Court in Prokuplje. // In 2012, the OWCP filed indictments against a total of seven persons for the criminal offense of War Crimes against Civilians and / or for the criminal offense of War Crimes against Prisoners of War. In 2012, the HLC represented the victims in four cases before the War Crimes Chamber of the Belgrade High Court - Ćuška / Qushk, Skočić, Lovas and Tenja II, while HLC observers monitored the main hearings in other proceedings before this court, as well as main hearings in cases before the courts of general jurisdiction - Rahovec / Orahovac, Kušnin/Kushnin i Miloš Lukić.

IZVEŠTAJ o suđenjima za ratne zločine u Srbiji u 2013. Godini

Author(s): / Language(s): Serbian

In 2013, 12 proceedings were conducted before the War Crimes Chamber of the High Court in Belgrade (High Court Division). First instance verdicts were passed in seven cases, finding 13 people guilty and one person acquitted. One verdict relates to the acceptance of the Agreement on the Recognition of the Criminal Offense of War Crimes against Civilians between the Defendant and the War Crimes Prosecutor's Office (TRZ). In five cases, the first-instance procedure was not completed by the end of 2013. // In 2013, two war crimes trials were conducted before the courts of general jurisdiction - the Orahovac / Rahovec case before the Požarevac High Court, in which a first instance verdict was rendered, and the Kushnin / Kushnin case, which is on appeal. before the Court of Appeals in Nis. The proceedings against Miloš Lukić are underway before the higher court in Prokuplje for the criminal offense of murder, which according to the characteristics of the case is a war crime against the civilian population.