here - Humanitarian Law Center/Fond za humanitarno pravo

Ljuban Devetak, at the time an active military commander with the rank of lieutenant colonel
and coordinator for combat operations of the Valjevo TO, and Miodrag Dimitrijević, the military
officer holding the most senior rank in Lovas, were charged with having jointly made the
decision on 17 October 1991 to confine a large number of civilians in the courtyard of the
Agricultural Cooperative, where members of the Dusan the Great volunteer group physically
abused them. Furthermore, the TRZ also charged Ljuban Devetak and Miodrag Dimitrijević with
making a decision on 18 October 1991 to have an armed group composed of members of the
Sabateurs Squad of the Valjevo TO and members of the Dusan the Great armed group undertake
a search mission on the terrain, using detained Croat civilians as ‘human shields’ against potential
attacks of Croatian forces.
The TRZ charged three members of the counter-diversion squad of the Valjevo TO - Darko Perić
as commander, Radovan Vlajković as a company commander and Radisav Josipović, as
commander of the first platoon of the same company, as well as members of the Dusan the Great
volunteer unit, among whom were the accused Jovan Dimitrijević, Saša Stojanović, Dragan
Bačić, and Zoran Kosijer - with participating, jointly with 40 members of the Valjevo TO and the
Dusan the Great unit, in a search mission on 18 October 1991 during which they used 50
Croatian civilians as ‘human shields’. The civilians were taken to a field of clover the accused
suspected to have been mined and were ordered to enter it, pushing the clover apart. When one of
the mines exploded, members of the Valjevo TO and the Dusan the Great group present at the
time, opened fire on the civilians. In the resulting explosions and gunfire 18 civilians were killed
and another 12 were wounded.
The TRZ charged Aleksandar Nikolaidis and Petronije Stevanović, as members of the Dusan the
Great armed group, with unlawful detention and confinement of Croat civilians and having
physically abused and harmed their human dignity between 10 and 18 October 1991. They were
also charged with having participated in the murder of an unspecified number of civilians,
pursuant to an order from the accused, Ljuban Devetak, between 14 and 18 October 1991 in the
village of Lovas, when Aleksandar Nikolaidis killed at least one and Petronije Stevanović killed
at least five persons.
The trial of this case commenced on 17 April 2008. Over the Course of the proceedings 194
witnesses were heard, the written testimonies of 36 witnesses, deceased or ill, were read out,
military expert witness were examined and several thousand pages of written evidence were read
out.
On 26 June 2012, Judge Olivera Anđelković, who presided over the chamber, said, in
pronouncing the judgment, that the court had found that the attack on Lovas had been carried out
on 9 October 1991, pursuant to an order from the command of the JNA’s 1st Proletarian Guard
Motorized Division, given to the command of the JNA’s 2nd Proletarian Guard Mechanized
Brigade, to “take care of the village of Lovas relying on their own forces”. The order to attack
Lovas, issued by the commander of the 2nd Proletarian Guard Mechanized Brigade of the JNA,
Dušan Lončar, on that same day required that the “supporting forces” – the TO and militia in
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