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Maximum sentence urged in Serb-Croat case
DUSAN STOJANOVIC
Associated Press
November 25, 2005

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro - War crimes prosecutors demanded the maximum punishment Friday for Serb paramilitary troops who refuse to confess to the slaughter of 192 Croat prisoners, one of the worst POW massacres of the Balkan wars.

The 16 defendants "still have a chance" to admit to gunning down prisoners of war captured after the 1991 fall of the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar, prosecutor Dusan Knezevic said in his closing statements.

"If they don't do it, nothing but the maximum sentence fits that hate, rage, arrogance and cruelty" displayed by the suspects, he said. "Those who are sentenced will one day walk out of their prisons, which cannot be said for the executed prisoners of war."

Since the death penalty was abolished in Serbia in 2000, the harshest sentence is 40 years in prison. Verdicts and sentencing are expected next week.

Since the landmark war crimes trial started in December 2003, only one suspect and two protected witnesses have confessed their roles in the notorious massacre of POWs at a pig farm in the town of Ovcara.

During the fighting in November 1991, the Serb-controlled Yugoslav army advanced against the forces of newly independent Croatia and seized control of a disputed eastern territory, capturing several hundred Croatian soldiers and civilians.

While most of those captured from Vukovar were released, about 200 were taken from a hospital and executed at the nearby pig farm. Their bodies dumped in a freshly dug pit, according to the indictment.

Knezevic said in his closing arguments that there was no doubt the prisoners were taken to a barn, transported from there on tractors and lined up in front of a pit.

"They were separated into the groups of seven to eight men and sprayed with machine gun bullets," the prosecutor said. "Those showing signs of life were shot in the head with pistols."

"Every (Serb) soldier who came to the pit was forced to shoot, as an assurance for their silence," Knezevic said.

In a key testimony earlier this month, former Serb soldier Ivan Atanasijevic admitted taking part in the killings. "I was completely in shock," he said. "Not even in movies have I seen so many corpses at one place."

The trial in Belgrade is seen as a key test of the ability of Serbia's judiciary to deal with cases of alleged Serb war crimes during the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Such trials in the Serbian republic became possible only after pro-democracy leaders toppled former President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 and sent him to the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He is currently on trial for his role in the Croatian, Bosnian and Kosovo wars.

The Hague tribunal is responsible for trying top civilian and military leaders - including three former Yugoslav army officers charged with command responsibility in the Croat POW slayings. Local courts in the Balkan countries deal with lower-level suspects.

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