Victims’ families want Medacki Dzep crimes prosecuted

BELGRADE - Families of the Serbs killed by the Croatian armed forces during an offensive on the territory of Medacki Dzep near the town of Gospic in western Croatia in 1993 Monday called on the authorities and competent institutions in Croatia to immediately prosecute those responsible for those crimes.

The families of those killed are embittered by the fact that 21 years after the crimes, virtually nobody has been held responsible, the Coordination of the Serbian associations of families of missing persons from the territory of the former Yugoslavia said in a release.

The Coordination also recalls that only one person has been convicted so far, despite the fact that the crimes committed in Medacki Dzep are undoubtedly among the most monstrous crimes committed in the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia.

A Croatian court has acquitted of all accusations the first accused, commander of the Gospic military district, Gen. Rahim Ademi, while the second accused, commander of the Ninth Guards Motorised Brigade, Gen. Mirko Norac, was sentenced to six years in prison, the Coordination said.

The families of the victims expressed their indignation at the way the matter had been dealt with, and they want to know who is responsible for the horrible crimes and whether all this means that Croatia considers the trial of those responsible and of the direct perpetrators of these crimes to have been completed.

The Coordination seeks support from the authorities and the general public in Serbia and urges them to raise their voices so that the perpetrators of the crimes could face justice and the families of the victims obtain moral redress for the irrecoverable loss.

According to data from the Documentation and...