193 Years In Prison For Ovcara Massacre

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Croatia

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Belgrade District Court passed the verdict for the Ovcara massacre. Thirteen persons were sentenced to 193 years in prison.

Miroljub Vujovic, one of 18 defendants for crimes in Ovcara, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. A total of 13 defendants were sentenced to 193 years in prison together, i.e. sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years in prison, while five were acquitted of charges with shooting 200 Croatian prisoners in the night between November 20 and 21, 1991 in the former farm Ovcara, near Vukovar.

Even though Miroljub Vujovic said in his closing statement that the process was staged and that the

Ovcara was a farm 5 kilometres East of Vukovar. At the start of October 1991, it was turned into a Serbian concentration camp which between 3,000 and 4,000 persons passed through.

witnesses falsely testified in order to shift the blame to the Territorial Defence and volunteers at the time, the Court council did not consider such a statement. Furthermore, he said that he did not take part in murdering civilians, because he did not have any authorisations during the war, seeing how he was just a soldier. However, the District Court has confirmed the provision of the War Crimes Council, whose verdict was annulled by the Supreme Court in 2006.

Acquitted persons include Vujo Zlatar, Predrag Madjarac, Marko Ljuboja, Slobodan Katic and Milorad Pejic, while Milan Lancuzanin`s sentence was reduced from 20 years to 6, because of which he will soon leave prison, together with Predrag Dragovic, whose sentence was reduced from 20 years to 5. The Prosecution has already announced an appeal to the District Court`s provision, due to drastically reduced sentences.

Six-year process

The first indictment for crimes in Ovcara was raised at the end of 2003 and the first trial began on March 9, 2004. In December 2006, the Supreme Court cancelled the War Crimes Council`s verdict and retrial began in March 2007.

During the first trial, only Marko Ljuboja and Slobodan Katic were acquitted, while this time, they were joined by Madjarac, Zlatar and Milorad Pejic.

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