Montenegro Seeks to Indict Croatians for Prison Camp Crimes

Democratic Montenegro MP Momo Koprivica at a parliament session in Podgorica. Photo: Parliament of Montenegro.

Koprivica made the announcement at a parliamentary debate on war crimes committed against Montenegrins at the Lora military prison in the Croatian coastal city of Split.

"The Justice Ministry informed me that Supreme State Prosecution will send Croatia a request for revision of the agreement so the Montenegrin authorities could launch an investigation into the Lora case. The current agreement doesn't allow us to prosecute perparators of war crimes in Croatia," Koprivica said.

In July 2006, Montenegrin and Croatian Supreme State Prosecutors signed an agreement on the cooperation and prosecution of perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide.

The agreement enables the Montenegrin State Prosecutor's Office to indict Montenegrin citizens who are accused of committing war crimes by Croatia but are unavailable to the Croatian judiciary.

But according to the agreement, Montenegro cannot indict Croatian citizens who are accused of war crimes against Montenegrin citizens.

Montenegrin Justice Minister Marko Kovac said in January that Croatian prosecutors should probe war crimes committed in 1992 against Montenegrin soldiers who were held at the Lora military prison and subjected to torture, abuse and humiliation.

Jovan Jole Vucurovic, an MP from the Democratic Front, which is also part of the ruling alliance, accused the former government led by Milo Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists of signing an inadequate agreement with Croatia.

"The former government betrayed its own citizens and it should be held accountable for covering up war crimes at Lora because it did nothing to find the...