Wars of independence

Miroljub Vujovic, a Serb wartime fighter who was convicted in Serbia of participating in killing some 200 prisoners from the Croatian town of Vukovar at the nearby Ovcara Farm in November 1991, has been granted early release based on the Belgrade Appeals Court's conclusion that his "resocialisation" is complete.

View of the burning city of Dubrovnik, in Croatia, in November 1991, after air raids and artillery attacks by the Yugoslav Army. Photo: EPA/PETER NORTHALL

MPs in the Serbian parliament on Tuesday voted against debating three proposed resolutions related to the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia.

Lawyers for former Serbian State Security Service officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic appealed on Monday against the verdict in June which sentenced them both to 12 years in prison for aiding and abetting crimes war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992.

June 2021 was an unusually busy month for coverage of war crimes in the Serbian media, which doesn't usually report on the subject very often. Just a few weeks apart, two major verdicts were announced in The Hague that were highly uncomfortable for Serbia.

A law that will grant benefits to civilian victims of the 1991-95 war was adopted by Croatian MPs on Thursday with 107 votes in favour, 16 against and five abstentions.

It was passed after heated discussions in parliament about whether the law would also give benefits to people who were part of 'enemy' Serb forces during the war.

Ljubljana – Thirty years to the day, the Brijuni Declaration was adopted, ending hostilities between Yugoslav and Slovenian forces in the ten-day independence war and suspending Slovenia’s independence activities for three months. It was the first international agreement between Slovenia and the EU’s predecessor, the European Economic Community (EEC).

Stanisic and Simatovic are charged with war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1991 and 1995.

• Stanisic, the former head of Serbian State Security, and Simatovic, his former deputy, are being retried for participating in a 'joint criminal enterprise' to remove non-Serbs from areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• Both men are accused of organising and financing Serb armed units that committed crimes during the Croatian and Bosnian wars from 1991 to 1995.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague will hand down its verdict on Wednesday in the retrial of former Serbian State Security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, who are accused of controlling Serb fighters who committed crimes during the Croatian and Bosnian wars.