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Court Acquits 6 Croats of Murdering Elderly Serb Civilians in Krajina
Four of the suspects had confessed to the killings
The county court in the Adriatic port of Zadar said on Monday it found no evidence to incriminate six former Croatian army soldiers, accused of killing 16 Serbs in the villages of Varivode and Gosici in the Dalmatian hinterland.
But the court sentenced a seventh man, Ivica Petric, accused of murdering a Serb civilian in the village of Zrmanja near Knin in August 1995, to six years in jail, the Zagreb daily Novi List said. An eighth man was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in jail for armed robbery and attempted murder of an 80-year old Serb woman near Knin last year.
The Croatian government came under sharp international condemnation for failing to prevent a spree of looting, house burning and murder that ensued after its troops recaptured most Serb-held land in a series of blitz offensives in August 1995. The fall of Serb Krajina to Croatia led to an exodus of 150,000 Serbs to Bosnia and Serbia.
In 1991 minority Krajina Serbs seized almost a third of Croatia and expelled most Croat inhabitants in their uprising against Zagreb's move to independence from federal Yugoslavia. In the vengeful Croatian counter offensives four years later, nine elderly Serbs were murdered in Varivode -- shot from close range on the doorsteps of their houses.
Although four soldiers confessed to the murders, the Novi List report quoted the court as saying "their statements did not agree" and "did not match the description of the sites where the murders took place." It also said ballistic analysis had ruled out all 50 guns found in the possession of the accused as the murder weapons. Two eyewitnesses to the Gosici killings were unable to identify any of the accused as the murderers, and there were no witnesses in Varivode.
The Croatian branch of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (HHO) which monitored the trial said it could not comment on the verdict as it was not final. "The parties now have a right to appeal and we are witholding any comment at the moment," Vjekoslav Magas, a HHO spokesman told Reuterss, adding that so far they had no objection to the trial proceedings. |
ZAGREB, July 16 (Reuters) - Croatian court authorities have acquitted six Croats charged with murdering elderly Serb
civilians in the wake of last summer's military action in the former Serb-held enclave, Croatian media said on Tuesday.
Human rights abuses by Croatian forces in the Krajina Amnesty International
Croatia Human Rights Practices, 1995 U.S. Department of State
Serb Exodus from Krajina Articles compiled by marko@cdsp.neu.edu
Death Squads Go on a Rampage Through Krajina The Feral Tribune, Zagreb
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