‘Madam, I Must Kill You’: Story of an Unpunished War Crime

Vracaric died in 2008 in a nursing home for the elderly and disabled not far from Vukovar, while Cibaric currently lives in Varazdinske Toplice, a small town in north-western Croatia. Cibaric occasionally appears on Croatian television on the anniversary of the fall of Vukovar as the embodiment of the sacrifice made by Croatian people in the city that suffered a devastating three-month siege by Belgrade's forces before it fell.

On September 14, 1991, Serbian forces killed his brother and took his father and mother away and killed them. Cibaric spent nine months in Serbian captivity, where he was subjected to horrific torture.

In Serbia, he was sentenced by a military court after admitting he killed five civilians from Borovo Naselje in 1991, including Milica Vracaric. In August 1992, he was exchanged for Serb prisoners and freed.

Because Croatia does not recognise the decisions of Yugoslav military courts, those responsible for the murder of Milica Vracaric have never been prosecuted.

BIRN's investigation of the documents makes it clear that no independent probe of the case has been conducted in Croatia, although state institutions have been repeatedly alerted over the last decade to what happened.

In a telephone interview with BIRN, Cibaric denied responsibility for the crimes, saying that his confession to the five murders 27 years ago was extracted by torture.

"When someone is beating you every 15 minutes and asks you to confess, then at some point you break down and say everything they want to hear, even though you are not guilty," Cibaric said.

Reconstructing a war crime

The derelict Obucara shoe factory, from where Milica and Dragoljub Vracaric were seized in 1991. Photo: Hrvoje Simicevic....

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