crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
Pavel Jamnik *
POST-WORLD WAR TWO CRIMES ON THE TERIRORY OF
SLOVENIA : POLICE INVESTIGATION AND PROOF REGARDING
CRIMINAL OFFENCES THAT DO NOT FALL UNDER THE STATUtE
OF lIMITATIONS
1. Introduction
After changes in the political system in Slovenia in 1990, experts started investigating criminal
offences perpetrated by the Yugoslav authority that do not fall under the statute of limitations. On 1
January 1995 1 , the police started investigating post-war mass killings, and that date can be considered
as the day when the new Slovenian state recognised the post-World War Two events as crimes that do
not fall under the statute of limitations. According to data collected so far, the territory of Slovenia
witnessed the killing of about 100,000 people in the first months after the war ended. Most of the
victims were of other Yugoslav nationalities and were captured in Slovenia fleeing from the Partisan
army. According to that data, at least 15,000 of the murdered were of Slovenian nationality.
The police and the prosecution viewed three questions as most significant:
– Is it possible, after so many years, to find enough criminal evidence incriminating the perpetrators;
– Can the perpetrators be traced;
– Regarding the question of identifying victims: if identification by name and surname of victims is
not possible, then at least an identification in the broader sense, i.e. their ethnic, religious and social
affiliation.
The work was set on two levels: the Police established a special working group for investigating
the post-war mass killings, as part of Project Reconcilian (SPRAVA), and the Government established a
government commission for the registration, exhumation and arranging of the concealed gravesites.
2. Legal framework for the investigation of post-war killings
To prevent concerns about individual legal definitions of criminal offences hindering the
investigation of post-war killings, we proceeded from the view that first we need to clear the air
regarding all important factual circumstances of the individual killings, and then we needed to ascertain
whether there were indications of criminal offences for which criminal prosecution does not fall under
the statute of limitations, in accordance with Article 116 of the Penal Code. In this way, we avoided
premature questions about the possibility of criminal prosecution of any traced perpetrators, or about
what sort of a criminal offence was involved.
When we were gathering the initial information on the gravesites, we needed to find data in
accordance with the requirements of the Penal Code.
According to Article 116 of the Slovenian Penal Code, the following criminal offences are regarded
as those which do not fall under the statute of limitations:
– Genocide, in accordance with Article 373;
– War crimes against civil populations, in accordance with Article 374;
* Pavel Jamnik, Senior Criminal Police Superintendent, General police administration, Ministry of the interior.
1
Dokument MNZ UKS št.0221/8-E-23 z dne 3. 1. 1995.
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