HINA January 12, 2006
ICTY no longer holds Stanisic and Simatovic responsible for Ovcara massacre
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Jan 12 (Hina) - The International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has dropped charges against former Serbian secret
police chief Jovica Stanisic and his aide Franko Simatovic for a massacre
committed on a farm outside the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991.
The two men were initially charged with responsibility for the transfer of 250
Croats from the Vukovar hospital to the Ovcara farm, their torture, execution
and burial in a mass grave on 20 November 1991. The charges were withdrawn from
the second amended indictment that was made public on Thursday.
The indictment was expanded to include responsibility for war crimes committed
in Bosnia-Herzegovina, including executions of Muslim civilians in July 1995 by
the Serb paramilitary unit "The Scorpions".
The Hague-based tribunal held a status conference in the case on Thursday,
announcing that the two accused, who are on provisional release pending trial,
could plead to the amended indictment via a video link.
Stanisic and Simatovic are charged with involvement in a joint criminal
enterprise the purpose of which was "the forcible and permanent removal of the
majority of non-Serbs, principally Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats,
from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina" in order to create a new,
Serb-dominated state.
(c) 2006 HINA-CROATIAN NEWS AGENCY
Serbian News Network - SNN
[email protected]
http://www.antic.org/
