"The Prosecutor's Office has to date proposed six cases for transfer to courts of countries in which the crimes were committed, and a total of 20 cases will be proposed by the end of the year," Hartmann told Hina over the telephone.
She confirmed that the case of the Vukovar Three -- former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) officers Veselin Sljivancanin, Mile Mrksic, and Miroslav Radic -- was among those cases.
Asked if the Prosecutor's Office intended to propose transferring the Vukovar Three trial to Croatia or Serbia and Montenegro, Hartmann said she was unable to say.
Every proposal to date, except one, was transferred to countries in which the crimes were committed, on the principle that justice should be served as close to the victims as possible.
The exception was the proposal that Vladimir Kovacevic aka Rambo, accused of attacks on Dubrovnik, southern Croatia, be tried in Serbia and Montenegro because he is a mental patient already undergoing treatment there.
The Prosecutor's Office has proposed transferring to Croatia the case of Croatian generals Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac. The trial chamber has recently requested the parties in the proceedings to submit additional documents explaining the degree of responsibility and gravity of the crimes Ademi and Norac are accused of.
In connection with the Vukovar Three, the Prosecutor's Office on November 15 submitted the draft of a third consolidated indictment clarifying the previous one, at the trial chamber's order.
This draft states that the "evacuation" of about 400 captured Croats and non-Serbs from Vukovar's general hospital extends to their transfer to a JNA barracks where they were mistreated, and eventual transfer to Ovcara farm, where a minimum 264 were killed.
The draft rejected the trial chamber's suggestion to drop the accusation that Sljivancanin had control over the immediate perpetrators of the massacre at Ovcara.
The Prosecutor's Office expanded the contested part of the indictment, stating that Sljivancanin was a security officer who commanded a military police battalion and had both de iure and de facto control over the Serb troops who took part in the "evacuation".
During a three-month siege, which ended on 18 November 1991, Vukovar was completely destroyed and thousands of Croatian civilians were killed. The Hague tribunal indicted for the crimes that were committed former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Vukovar Mayor Slavko Dokmanovic, Mrksic, Sljivancanin, Radic, and local political leader Goran Hadzic, who is at large.