Ex-Serb colonel gets 20 years for Vukovar war crimes

Taken from the Guardian, September 27, 2007
By David Batty and agencies

The UN war crimes tribunal today jailed a former Yugoslav army colonel for 20 years for his involvement in the massacre of hundreds of people in the Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991.



Mile Mrksic, a former colonel in the Serb army, was found guilty of aiding and abetting the torture and murder of 194 people sheltering in a hospital in Vukovar, a town which became synonymous with one of the most notorious cases of mass murder in the 1991-95 wars across the former Yugoslavia.

A second officer, Veselin Sljivancanin was jailed for five years for torture but cleared of the most serious charges against him. A third officer, Miroslav Radic, was cleared of all charges.

The verdicts generated indignation in Croatia, which had hoped for far more severe sentences. State-run radio called the outcome "shocking", while the prime minister, Ivo Sanader, said the verdicts were "shameful".

"The whole world witnessed the suffering of civilians in Vukovar. The victims did not deserve such verdicts," Mr Sanader said.

Prosecutors at the Hague tribunal had sought to prove the trio were responsible for the killing of at least 264 people who had fled to Vukovar's hospital expecting to be evacuated by international observers when the town fell to Yugoslav forces after a siege.

Several hundred were taken from the hospital by Serb-dominated army units and militias and taken to a farm where they were beaten and shot dead.

Prosecutors had sought to prove that those killed were largely civilians, but the court ruled they had been initially selected as suspected Croatian fighters. Accordingly, all charges of crimes against humanity against the three men - known as the "Vukovar Three" - were dismissed, including the charge of extermination.

But Mrksic, 60, then the commander of Serb forces in the region, was convicted for turning over the captives, who were considered POWs, to a group of Serb paramilitaries that he knew harboured intense animosity towards them.

Sljivancanin, 54, the area's chief security officer, was jailed for failing to protect the Croatians from beatings and torture by the local Serb paramilitary forces and militias.

Mr Radic, 45 was cleared of having anything to do with the cruelty meted out to the hospital evacuees and ultimately their murder.

UN prosecutors also expressed dismay at the outcome. "The prosecutor finds it incomprehensible that someone who is convicted for the torture of 200 people can receive only a sentence of five years," said a spokeswoman for chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte.

One nurse who was in the hospital at the time told Reuters that she was shocked at the court's leniency. Footage of Sljivancanin promising to hand over patients to the Red Cross has been repeatedly aired on Croatian television over the years.

"He is responsible for the fact that the wounded were taken from the hospital," the nurse, Binazija Kolesar, said. "We all saw him in the hospital and we know that he was the one who was making decisions."

Sljivancanin, who was first detained in June 2003, will be credited for his time in detention and freed within a year.