The government of the Republic of Serbia adopted on March 29th, 2012 the program for the return of refugees and displaced Bosniaks from the municipality of Priboj in the period 1991-1999, with a clear message that “expulsion and eviction of its citizens will not happen again under threats, fear and objective danger to life, as was the case with the Bosniak citizens in the municipality of Priboj.”
Data held by the Center Humanitarian Law (HLC) shows that in the period between March 24 and June 10, 1999, during the international armed conflict in Kosovo, 9,401 persons were killed, died or were forcibly disappeared, of whom 758 were killed by NATO activities. HLC data is based on the analysis and processing of over 6,000 documents: the testimonies of witnesses and surviving family members of the victims, court documents, government reports, reports from domestic and international human rights organizations, forensic reports, newspaper articles, books, monographs and other sources about the NATO bombing.
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February 26th, 2012 – Human rights organization are calling on the police and the office of the prosecutor to investigate whether or not the assault against Dželim Ljimani/ Xhelim Limani, which happened on February 23rd on the 43 bus line in Belgrade, was incited by prejudice based on racial and ethnic grounds. In that case, judicial authorities must take into consideration such motives as an aggravated circumstance.
Ample evidence – including that on which the ICTY verdict in Milutinovic et al was founded; the statements of the survivors of the Drenica massacre, who either testified before the ICTY, or who have given statements to the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC); documents stored in the ICTY’s public database – all indicate that a number of serious and massive war crimes were committed against ethnic Albanian civilians in the then zone of responsibility of the newly appointed Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republic of Serbia, Lt. Gen. Ljubisa Dikovic, who at the time the crimes were committed was Commander of the 37th Motorized Brigade of the Army of the FRY. During the NATO bombing, war crimes were committed by members of Yugoslav Army (VJ) forces and forces of the Ministry of the Interior (MUP). Although he was legally and professionally responsible for preventing the crimes, the commander of the 37th Motorized Brigade failed to do so. To date, no members or commanders of the units that took part in the commission of the war crimes in Cirez/Qirez, Staro Cikatovo/ Çikatovё e Vjetёr, Baks, Vrbovac/Vërboc, and Glogovac/Gllogoc, where no less than 200 civilians were killed in four weeks, have been prosecuted.
The limitation of acquired level of human rights and freedoms by new laws is apparent and it becomes unbearable when it comes to the access to justice.
By passing the Civil Procedure Code, the Criminal Procedure Code, and the Criminal Code, the state, especially the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, limits the access to justice for individuals, organizations, independent bodies, associations, and media.
These laws threaten free thought, critical speech, and free action by repression.
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The Trial Chamber of the Higher Court in Belgrade War Crimes Department presided by Judge Tatjana Vuković rendered a judgment on December 16th, 2011, after three years of trials, finding the accused Darko Janković aka Pufta and Goran Savić guilty and sentencing them to 15 years of imprisonment and 1 year and 6 months of imprisonment respectively, while the accused Saša Ćilerdžić was acquitted of charges. The Humanitarian Law Center believes that the Court has rendered a just sentence in the case of the accused Janković, which is adequate for the gravity of the crime committed. In this moment, while there is no access to the written reasoning of the judgment, it is unclear what were the reasons that led the Court into rendering the acquittal of Ćilerdžić and the minimum prison sentence in the case of the accused Savić.
According to the assessment of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC), the trial and acquittal of Miloš Simonović and Republic of Serbia MoI Reserve Dragiša Marković for the murder of Isa Emini, an Albanian from Priština/Prishtin, rendered by the Court of Appeal in Niš on November 17th, 2011, raises serious doubts as to the declared willingness of the Judiciary of the Republic of Serbia to prosecute perpetrators of war crimes who are members of the Police.
The Humanitarian Law Center believes that the sentence rendered in this case, even though it may be considered strict, could have been stricter, since the victims of the crime were civilians who were murdered in a brutal manner, and the accused is a former member of the Reserve Police, who had an obligation to protect civilians. The accused in this case did not submit a guilty plea for the murder, nor did he show remorse or express his condolences to the family of the victims, thus preventing this trial from offering moral satisfaction for victims’ family members.