Croatia Charges Ex-Prison Guards with Abusing Wartime Detainees

Croatian police said on Wednesday that they have charged four unnamed Croatian citizens with committing war crimes against civilians and prisoners of war in Dalj, a village in eastern Croatia, some 20 kilometres from the wartime flashpoint town of Vukovar.

The four men, aged 52, 61, 65 and 70, are suspected of contravening the Geneva Conventions on the protection of civilians and the treatment of prisoners in time of war.

Police said that "as prison guards in the period from October 1991 to June 1992, they held six Croatian civilians and illegally detained eight Croatian soldiers in Dalj".

"During this time, they severely physically and mentally abused the detainees, causing them intense suffering and pain," a police statement said.

On August 1, 1991, Yugoslav People's Army, together with paramilitary volunteers from Serbia, attacked and took control over Dalj, which was then an ethnically-mixed village.

After the nearby town of Vukovar fell in November 1991, the non-Serb population was expelled, and a number of prisoners of war and civilians were deported to jails and detention camps in Serbia, while more than 200 people were executed at the nearby Ovcara Farm and in other places like Dalj.

Vukovar and surrounding villages, including Dalj, were incorporated into a self-proclaimed Serb-run rebel statelet called the Republic of Serbian Krajina. The area was finally reintegrated into Croatia in January 1998.

During the war, some buildings in Dalj were used as detention facilities, mostly for non-Serb prisoners.

Of the four suspects charged by the police, one suspect is currently unavailable to the Croatian authorities.