Former Yugoslav Navy Chief Goes to Danish Jail

Jokic pleaded guilty to six counts of violating the laws or customs of war during the shelling of Dubrovnik on December 6, 1991. He was sentenced to seven years in prison on March 18, 2004, and the Appeals Chamber confirmed his sentence on August 30, 2005. He was held at the tribunal’s detention centre in The Hague pending transfer



Jokic was transferred to Denmark on October 6 this year.



At the time of the shelling of Dubrovnik, the Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA, and Croatian forces were about to reach a comprehensive ceasefire. Although Jokic did not order the shelling of Dubrovnik’s old town, he is considered to have aided and abetted the act by not issuing an immediate order to cease fire.



Two civilians were killed and three were wounded during the shelling, and a number of religious, historical, cultural and educational buildings and monuments were damaged or destroyed. The old town had been listed as a protected World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO. It was also covered by the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.



While finalising the ceasefire the day after the attack, Jokic told his Croatian counterpart that he regretted the shelling.



In a statement to the court, he said, “The fact that these lives were lost in the area for which I was responsible will remain etched in my consciousness for the rest of my life.”