Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

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Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006The second verdict by the War Crimes Chamber was reached on January 30 th ,2006, in the “Bulic” case. The accused Milan Bulic was sentenced to eightyears in prison for committing a criminal act, war crime against prisonersof war 670 .Criminal proceedings against Milan Bulic were separated fromthe main “Ovcara” case on January 28 th 2005, because of his poor healthcondition 671 .After that, a court ruling was passed in the case of “Sasa Radak”, whowas sentenced to 20 years of prison for participating in the liquidationof prisoners of war who were taken from the “Ovcara” agricultural farmand killed at “Grabovo” on November 21, 1992. The ruling states thatSasa Radak, a.k.a. “Cleaner”, headed the so-called “Death platoon of theTerritorial Defense”, that he was with the soldiers who beat the prisonersand that he continued with the maltreatment of prisoners in a storageshed in Ovcara. 672 When the sentence was being read out, Sasa Radak wasremoved from court as he swore and called the judge “a tramp” 673 .The last in a serious of verdicts by the War Crimes Council of theBelgrade District Court was passed on September 18, when Anton Lekajwas sentenced to 13 years of prison for executing war crimes against civilpopulations 674 . The indictment charged Lekaj with execution or involvementin the execution of four individuals. It was proven that Lekaj was certainlyinvolved in the murder of Salja Redj, but not in the executions of SaljaBedri, Zvezdana Ljusaj and Rade Gagovic 675 . It was established that AntonLekaj together with Arben Skupi killed Salja Redj, but it was not establishedwhich of the two of them did it 676 . In any case, the court decided that evenif he did not shoot, Anton Lekaj was an accomplice 677 . It was proven thatAnton Lekaj raped minor Sofija Tafaj in a room at the Pastrik hotel, but it wasnot established that he raped her again on a table in the hotel’s basement 678 .The court also ruled that Anton Lekaj did not do a sexual perversion overSalja Bedriju for which he had been charged 679 . Therefore, Anton Lekaj is670 CL SFRY, Article 144671 Second verdict of the War Crimes Chamber, see web page: http://okruznisudbg.org.yu/content/2006/Druga%20presuda/view?searchterm=bulić%20OR%20булић, visited on November 25 th , 2006672 20 years for Radak because of Ovcara, B92, September 16 th , 2006, See: http://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index.php?yyyy=2006&mm=09&dd=06&nav_id=210842,visited on November 25 th , 2006673 Ibid674 The report of the Initiative from the pronouncement of the verdict to Anton Lekaj from September 18 th ,2006, is in the Initiative’s documentation675 Ibid676 Ibid677 Ibid678 Ibid679 Ibid122
Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006responsible for murders, tortures, inhuman acts, inflicting body wounds andraping civilians on the territory of the Djakovica municipality in June 1999 680 .Finally, the president of the council, Olivera Andjelkovic, pointed out thatthe court encountered a great obstruction on the side of UNMIK judiciary,which, following a request of the Belgrade District Court, decided to allowthe hearing of defense witnesses only, but not of prosecution witnessesliving in Kosovo 681 . Taking into account all extenuating and aggravatingcircumstances of the case, requests of the prosecution and the defense andthe Criminal Code of the FRY, under which a maximum prison sentence isone of 20 years for this deed, the court decided to sentence Anton Lekajto 13 years of prison 682 . Olivera Andjelkovic ended the court proceedingsby saying: “Mr. Lekaj, we did not sentence you because you were a KLAmember, nor because you are an Albanian. We have sentenced you for thecrimes you committed against civilians, and civilians are sacred” 683 .Before the War Crimes Chamber was formed, two war crime cases wereinitiated and completed before Belgrade and Prokuplje District Courts,“Sjeverin” 684 and “Sasa Cvjetan” 685 .Interesting is the fact that the War Crimes Chamber is authorized to process23 different criminal acts, listed in chapter XVI of the Basic CriminalCode and certain number of criminal acts which were envisaged by theHague Tribunal Statute, but so far they have only processed two types ofcriminal acts: war crimes against prisoners of war 686 and war crimes againstcivilians 687 .680 Ibid681 Ibid682 Ibid683 Ibid684 K. no. 668/2002685 K. no. 1823/04686 “Ovcara” case, K.B. 01/03, verdict reached on December 12 th , 2005687 Cases: “Sjeverin” – K.B. 94/02, “Sasa Cvjetan” – K.B. 1273/02, “Anton Lekaj” – K.B. 7/04, “Zvornik”– K.B. 17/04, “Skorpioni” – K.B. 3/05123
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Implementation of Transitional Laws in Serbia 2006

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