The NGOs also asked the department to launch a probe against the then Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) high ranking officers for covering up the crimes, and against the commanders of JNA units and volunteers for failure to hand over to courts the perpetrators of those crimes.
"Another reason for launching a serious investigation into the war crimes in Antin is the fact that Tomislav Nikolic has on several occasions boasted of his involvement in the war campaign in Croatia," the NGOs say in a press release quoting Nikolic as stating in many interviews that he "demonstrated great courage and heroism" in Slavonia (eastern Croatia) and that he personally showed how the Serbian people should be protected. This, he said, was why Seselj, who is now being tried before the UN war crimes tribunal, had proclaimed him 'a Chetnik duke'.
The Serb Radical Party will sue Natasa Kandic, the Fund's director, who was the first to inform the public that there were suspicions that Nikolic was in Antin in 1991 at the time when over 30 villagers were killed.
According to a party official, Aleksandar Vucic, the last crime was committed in Antin on November 4, 1991, and Nikolic arrived in the village on December 6 that year.
The mayor of the northern town of Kikinda, Branislav Blazic, who is a member of the Radical Party, on Thursday said that Kandic was a persona non grata in that town because she "is fomenting an anti-Serb hysteria".