BELGRADE, June 28 (Hina)- Yugoslavia's Assistant Justice Minister Nebojsa Sarkic on Thursday stated that the trial in Split, Croatia, for the Lora war crimes case was not in keeping with European standards nor with the facts at hand,
Belgrade's Beta news agency reported on Friday.
BELGRADE, June 28 (Hina)- Yugoslavia's Assistant Justice Minister
Nebojsa Sarkic on Thursday stated that the trial in Split, Croatia,
for the Lora war crimes case was not in keeping with European
standards nor with the facts at hand, Belgrade's Beta news agency
reported on Friday. #L#
The agency further reported that Croatian government and Justice
Ministry representatives did not wish to comment on the statement.
Representatives of the Yugoslav Justice Ministry and the Belgrade
County Court on Thursday criticised the Hague-based UN war crimes
tribunal because it ignored the large evidence on crimes which had
been committed at Split's Lora military jail.
The investigating judge and deputy president of the First Municipal
Court in Belgrade, Dragan Cesarevic, who questioned 20 witnesses
from the Lora jail following a request by Split County Court, said
that murders, torture and abuse had been committed, particularly in
the jail's Block "C". Representatives of the International Red
Cross never registered these prisoners, Cesarevic claimed, because
the Lora administration hid prisoners in a stone tower outside the
jail.
He further noted that prisoners were interned at night and
immediately beaten and then tortured in the administrator's office
with electric shocks while tied to a special chair used
specifically for that purpose.
Court expert Dusan Dunjic said that he conducted examinations of
about 15 prisoners from the Lora prison and established that some of
them had been taken out to be executed on several occasions or
witnessed the slaughter of fellow prisoners. Several were exposed
to "experimental cuts" while others were forced to have oral or anal
sex, even with close relatives and brothers.
A judge of the Belgrade County Court, Ilija Simic, said that the
Yugoslav Justice Ministry had submitted a 200 page report on the
crimes committed at the Lora prison to the Hague tribunal.
That jail was just one of 221 prison camps where Serbs and members of
the former Yugoslav People's Army were detained, Simic said, and
added that the chief of the military police, Mate Lausic, and former
Defence Minister Gojko Susak should be held responsible for these
crimes. According to a testimony by an eye witness, Mario Barisic,
they were aware of the crimes that were committed in the Lora prison
and had even discussed the matter with the then Croatian state
leadership.
(hina) sp sb