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Croatia Massacre Defendants Denounce ‘Political’ Serbia Trial

September 13, 201816:01
Ten former Serb fighters again pleaded not guilty to the killing of 70 Croatian civilians in the village of Lovas in 1991 as their long-running trial restarted in Belgrade.

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The village of Lovas in eastern Croatia. Photo: Slovas/Wikipedia/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.

The defendants in the Lovas massacre case pleaded not guilty at a hearing before the Serbian Higher Court on Thursday, with some of them criticising the trial and indictment as politically motivated.

“I have said on several occasions that this is a staged process, and I believe this will be proven in the end,” said one defendant, Milan Devcic.

Another defendant, Zeljko Krnjajic, denied committing or ordering any crimes.

“What I am charged with is command responsibility, but I was not a commander,” Krnjajic said.

Zoran Kosijer, whose motion for the dismissal of the trial chamber was denied, said that he was being prosecuted for political reasons.

“You don’t have a single witness… I am being tried solely for my membership [of the Dusan Silni paramilitary unit],” Kosijer said.

The trial for the Lovas massacre was restarted in June 2018 because the position of chief war crimes prosecutor was vacant from December 2015 until May 2017. During that time, deputy prosecutors acted on behalf of the prosecutor’s office in trials, but the appeals court said that this practice was unlawful.

This surprised the defendants, who were ready to make their closing statements in the trial.

Ten former members of the police, Serb territorial defence forces, the Yugoslav People’s Army and the Dusan Silni (Dusan the Great) paramilitary unit are accused of committing war crimes against civilians and of killing 70 of them in the Croatian village of Lovas in October 1991.

The indictment says Serb forces captured Lovas on October 10 that year, after which the beatings and torture of civilians started.

On October 17, the Serb forces allegedly rounded up around 70 men from Lovas, aged 18 to 65, detained them and tortured some of them.

The next day, defendants Radovan Vlajkovic and Radisav Josipovic, who were military officials with Serbian territorial defence forces, were ordered to use the civilians as a human shield in a minefield, according to the indictment.

Vlajkovic and Josipovic are said to have chosen around 50 civilians and told them to walk towards a nearby field to check where the mines were.

When they got there, members of the Dusan Silni paramilitary unit told the civilians to walk in a line and to check with their feet where the mines were; Vlajkovic and Josipovic allegedly participated in this.

When one man fell over, a mine exploded, and at the same time a number of soldiers started shooting at the Croatians, 19 of whom were killed.

The prosecution said that 20 civilians were killed on October 10, when the village was captured, while the other victims were killed at other times.

All the former fighters were convicted in 2012, but Serbia’s appeals court annulled the verdict and sent the case for retrial in 2014.

Four of those who were initially convicted – Ljuban Devetak, Dragan Bacic, Aleksandar Nikolaidis and Milan Radojcic – have since died.

Serbia’s deputy war crimes prosecutor asked in March 2017 for the ten defendants to be jailed for a total of 83 years.

The next hearing is scheduled for September 27.

Read more:

Serbian Judge and Defendant Clash at Lovas Trial

Serbian Trial for Croatia Massacre Blighted by Delays

This post is also available in this language: Shqip Macedonian Bos/Hrv/Srp


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