Croatians Detained in Serbian Prison Camps Sue Belgrade

Three Croatian citizens who were detained in prison camps in Serbia after the fall of Vukovar are suing the authorities in Belgrade for compensation, one of them, Dragutin Guzovski, told BIRN on Wednesday.

Guzovski, who is president of the Vukovar-Srijemska county branch of the Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps, HDLSKL, said he filed the first of the three lawsuits to the Higher Court in Belgrade, and promised that many more will follow.

"In Vukovar-Srijem County, there are 3,560 [people who were] detainees in Serbian camps... Therefore, will go selectively, meaning that every month we will file up to 20 lawsuits," Guzovski said.

Guzovski spent six-and-a-half months in a detention camp in Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia. He filed his suit alongside two other former detainees, Antun Horvat and Srecko Glamocak.

Serbian lawyer Marko Pekic, who represents Guzovski, said he thinks the lawsuit will be successful because Montenegro, which like Serbia was part of Yugoslavia during the war, has accepted responsibility for its own detention camps.

"I think Serbia will have to accept [responsibility] because Montenegro already has… but everything is up to the court," Pekic told BIRN.

During 1991, at the start of the Croatian war, Vukovar was besieged for 87 days by the Yugoslav People's Army and various Serbian paramilitary groups. More than 3,000 people died and some 25,000 people were expelled.

After the fall of the town on November 19, 1991, some 200 prisoners were executed at the nearby Ovcara farm.

Croatian Serb rebels and the Yugoslav People's Army also imprisoned thousands of Croats in various camps, including several in Serbia.

Vesna Terselic, the head of the Zagreb-based NGO Documenta -...

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