Yugoslav Wars

The Croatian Supreme Court has upheld a verdict acquitting former policemen Frano Drljo and Bozo Krajina of committing a war crime by killing six elderly Serb civilians in the village of Grubori near Knin during an 'anti-terrorist' sweep conducted after Croatia's victorious Operation Storm defeated rebel Serb forces in August 1995, Croatian media reported on Wednesday.

Controversy erupted after a decommissioned T-55 tank was installed near the north stand of Red Star Belgrade's football stadium on Monday, with critics in Croatia accusing the club of celebrating Serbian "aggression" during the wars that broke out as Yugoslavia collapsed in the 1990s.

Under a first instance verdict in July last year, Dragan Marjanovic, Sasa Gavranovic, Vitomir Devic and Zoran Sljuka were each sentenced to 17 years in prison for the murders. Dragomir Kezunovic was sentenced to 14 years.

The Appeals Chamber revised the prison terms for Marjanovic to 14 years, and for Gavranovic, Devic and Sljuka to 15 years each.

Gotovina became a national icon when he was indicted in July 2001 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY for large-scale crimes against Serb civilians during and after Operation Storm. A broad section of the Croatian public supported his cause, seeing him as a victim of unfair treatment of the young Croatian state by the international community.

The failure of the international community to protect the so-called 'safe zone' of Srebrenica in July 1995 is a black mark in the history of peacekeeping operations across the world.

Much of the controversy that remains today surrounds the debate around the role of the UN and other state actors in not preventing the killings of over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys.

The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court ruled on Friday that sentences imposed on the two former Bosnian Serb policemen should be amalgamated, and that Zoran Babic should serve 35 years and Darko Mrdja 20 years.

Zagreb County Court on Tuesday handed down a first-instance verdict convicting former Bosnian Serb Army officer Dane Lukajic of physically abusing prisoners at the Manjaca camp during wartime, and sentenced him to six years in prison, local media reported.

The verdict was made public on Thursday after the prosecution and defence issued their closing statements on Monday.

One of the most respected journalists in Serbia, Dejan Anastasijevic, a longtime correspondent for Time magazine, Vreme, Tanjug, B92, the BBC and many others, has died in Belgrade after a long illness.

Born in 1962, Anastasijevic reported from the wars in the former Yugoslavia and wrote extensively about war crimes, earning the wrath of the Serbian authorities at the time.

When reaching their final judgement, the judges at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague will remain within the parameters of the appeals filed by the prosecutors and Karadzic's defence.

According to the newspaper, this list was handed over to the War Crimes Prosecution in April of last year and is the last one of this type that was submitted to domestic judicial authorities.