Serbs of Croatia

SPLIT - Dragan Vasiljkovic, also known as Captain Dragan, on Tuesday pleaded "absolutely not guilty" to charges of war crimes committed against Croatian soldiers and civilians during the war of the 1990s.

The much-publicised, high-security trial before the county court in Split, Croatia, will resume on October 18 with witness testimonies.

Milorad Pupovac, leader of the Croatian Serbs and a national minority MP in the Croatian parliament, told BIRN that he is ready to join a potential government led by the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, which won most seats in the recent elections.

Five former members of the police force of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina wartime rebel statelet in Croatia were convicted in their absence of committing war crimes in 1991.

A colleague of former Serbian state security officers on trial for the murder of journalist Slavko Curuvija denied seeing one of the accused on the day of the killing in April 1999.

The UN-backed war crimes court in The Hague has decided to postpone proceedings against former Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic indefinitely because he has cancer and is too ill to continue his trial.

The Hague Tribunal has officially announced that the trial of Goran Hadzic has been halted indefinitely.

Hadzic, a former political leader of ethnic Serbs in Croatia, is suffering from brain cancer.

The position of Croatia's ethnic Serbs kept improving until the country's EU accession, but the situation is now worsening, Milorad Pupovac has said.

Pupovac is a member of Croatia's assembly, and president of the Serb National Council.

Montenegro has extradited Serbian General Borislav Djukic to Croatia to face charges of crimes against humanity over his alleged responsibility for blowing up a dam during the 1991-95 war.

Aleksandar Vucic on Monday said he "hoped that Serbs in Croatia would feel less threatened than is the case now."

The prime minister once again stated that "Serbia wants good relations with Croatia."

Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Irinej’s call for Serbs to return to their former homes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo is not likely to be answered, said refugees who fled the conflicts there.