Relatives of Vukovar victims protest at UN court

Relatives of Vukovar victims protest at UN court

Agence France Presse

October 11, 2007

Relatives of Croat victims of the 1992 Vukovar massacre protested Thursday outside the UN court in The Hague against the leniency of sentences handed out to three men convicted for their roles in the killings.

Around 100 relatives, who flew in from Croatia earlier Thursday, lit candles and prayed as they stood in a circle holding up pictures of the 264 people killed during the massacre.

"The verdict was a big shock and a humiliation for the families and Croatia but also for the The Hague court and Europe," Marija Polhert, 64, who lost her only son Damir, told AFP.

Damir's body was found in a mass grave at Ovcara near Vukovar seven years after the killings. He was 28-years-old when he died.

Two weeks ago the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sentenced Serbian former Yugoslav army officer Mile Mrksic to 20 years for aiding and abetting the torture and murder of 194 Croat prisoners of war.

His subordinate Veselin Sljivancanin was sentenced to five years in jail while a third accused, Miroslav Radic, was acquitted because judges found there was no evidence he was aware of the killings at the Ovcara farm near Vukovar.

The verdict, especially Sljivancanin's low sentence and the acquittal, provoked outrage in Croatia. Although it is not uncommon for ICTY verdicts to create a stir in the former Yugoslavia, victims rarely travel to the tribunal to protest.

"It is crystal clear that Mrksic, Sljivancanin and Radic are guilty ... If they had killed 264 dogs they would have gotten a higher sentence," Polhert said.

"Justice has not been done," Zvonimir Separovic, the former Croatian minister of justice and of foreign affairs, who acted as a spokesman for the victims, said in a speech.

Representatives of the relatives will meet with the ICTY's registrar later Thursday to talk about their grievances.

"I hope the protest will change something. We will try," Zehra Rittig, who lost her brother during the fall of Vukovar, said.

"We don't expect much because we cannot influence the court's decision but we had to come as it is our moral obligation to the people who were killed," Slavko Juric, a representative of local Vukovar witness associations, told AFP.