JURIST - Paper Chase: Serbia war crimes court convicts 13 in Vukovar killings retrial

[JURIST] A Serbian war crimes court in Belgrade convicted 13 Serbs Thursday in connection with the 1991 killings of over 200 Croatian POWs [BBC backgrounder] at a pig farm outside the Croatian town of Vukovar [JURIST archive]. Eighteen Serbs were originally charged over the incident. Charges against two were later dropped. Fourteen of the men were found guilty of war crimes in late 2005, but in 2006 Serbia's Supreme Court vacated that verdict and ordered a retrial [JURIST reports]. The 13 found guilty Thursday were sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 20 years [BBC report].

Last month former Yugoslav National Army officer Miroslav Radic [Trial Watch backgrounder] sued Serbia for the four years and six months he was detained during his trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] on charges arising from the Vukovar killings. The ICTY handed down convictions for three other Serbs [JURIST report] in 2007. Last year, Norway agreed to extradite [JURIST report] an unnamed Croatian citizen to Serbia for his alleged involvement in the massacre.

For a one-stop snapshot of the latest legal news that matters, with breaking documents, new legal videos, live law-related webcasts, commentary by expert law professors and more - all updated through the day in real time, with no ads and no registration barriers - visit JURIST's homepage and check back often...