The commencement of the retrial, previously set for Monday, was postponed for one day because defence counsel requested exempting the panel of judges presiding over the proceedings. Later on Monday the court decided not to grant this request.
The initial verdict in the Ovcara massacre case, which in December 2005 sentenced 14 members of Vukovar's Territorial Defence and "Leva Supoderica" paramilitary unit and acquitted two for lack of evidence, was quashed by the Serbian Supreme Court in October 2006. The Supreme Court upheld appeals by some of the accused and by the prosecution, which asked for the maximum sentence, 20 years' imprisonment, for all the accused.
The commander of the Yugoslav People's Army- backed Territorial Defence Unit of Vukovar, Miroljub Vujovic, and his deputy, Stanko Vujanovic, as well as the commander of the said paramilitary unit, Milan Lancuzanin, were each given the maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment.
Other indictees who received the same sentence were Predrag Milivojevic, Predrag Dragovic, Ivan Atanasijevic, Djordje Sosic and Miroslav Djankovic.
Those sentenced to 15 years in jail included Vujo Zlatar, Jovica Peric and Milan Vojnovic. Predrag Madzarac got 12 years, while Nada Kalaba was sentenced to nine years and Goran Mogusa to five years in prison.
The two indictees who were acquitted were Marko Ljuboja and Slobodan Katic.
On Tuesday, 11 out of a total of the 16 indictees pleaded not-guilty. The other five indictees will enter a plea on Wednesday.