Serbian soldiers get 20 years in prison for Vukovar massacre

Mar 12, 2009, 14:36 GMT

Belgrade - A Serbian war crimes court on Thursday sentenced 13 former reservists in the ex Yugoslav army to between five and 20 years in prison for their involvement in war crimes committed in Croatia in 1991. Five other defendents were acquitted.

Former commander of Vukovar's Territorial defense Miroljub Vujovic and six other reservists were sentenced to maximum 20 years in prison for their involvement in killing of some 200 Croatian civilians at the Ovcara farm near Vukovar, eastern Croatia in November 1991.

Six others were sentenced to between five and 15 years in prison.

Judge Vesko Krstajich said that the suspects were guilty of 'murder, torture and inhuman treatment of war prisoners.'

This is the second trial of former reservists. In the first instance ruling at the end of 2005, 14 out of 16 reservists were sentenced to a total of 231 years in prison.

The retrial was ordered after the Serbian Supreme Court overturned the verdict in December 2006.

Former reservists' commanders, known as the 'Vukovar three' were, however, tried and sentenced by the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

In September 2007, Hague tribunal sentenced the then colonel Mile Mrksic, 60, to 20 years in prison as the commanding officer for the slaughter of 194 identified Croat soldiers.

   His subordinate in the field, then major and later colonel Veselin Sljivancanin, 54, got only five years because the tribunal found no evidence that he was in command of the troops and paramilitaries who committed the atrocity at the Ovcara farm.

   Miroslav Radic, then a captain, was acquitted due to a lack of vidence. His acquittal was the first by The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia for a defendant from Serbia.

The mild verdict by the Hague outraged Croatia, where the futile defence of Vukovar against the overwhelming siege in late 1991 is seen as a major symbol of its four-year war of independence.

Spokesman of Belgrade's war crimes court Bruno Vekaric said Thursday that the sentences are a partial satisfaction for the victims and that the prosecutors will complain over releasing sentences.

'The decision to give maximum punishment to the seven accused is a partial satisfaction to the victims,' Vekaric said after the verdict.