Fresh Start for Croatian Justice

In a move which shows how far Croatia has come in dealing with its own war crimes, eight witnesses from Serbia and Montenegro this week appeared in court in Split to testify about torture and murders allegedly committed at a military prison in 1992.

The case, known as “Lora” after the military prison in Split where the war crimes took place, became a byword for Croatia’s reluctance to face unpalatable truths about the past when the original trial of eight military policemen ended with their acquittal in 2002.

Last year, Croatia’s Supreme Court acknowledged that there had been a miscarriage of justice and ordered a retrial.

Zagreb’s attempts to restore its judicial reputation were given a boost last month when the Hague tribunal for the former Yugoslavia agreed to let a separate case, involving former generals Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac, be devolved to a Croatian court.

But the retrial in the Lora case is the first time that the government’s promises about witness protection and independence of the judiciary have been put to the test.

One of the key issues in the original trial was that in a highly politicised atmosphere, prosecution witnesses felt intimidated and few of them testified.

Of those who did testify, several said in court that they had been threatened and therefore could not speak freely.

Ordering a fresh trial, the Supreme Court spoke of “serious mistakes made during the process”.

During the 2002 trial, a witness was attacked in the courtroom building, and the presiding judge allowed people in the gallery to shout at witnesses. Judge Slavko Lozina questioned the credibility of prosecution witnesses and rejected a request to bring witnesses from Serbia and Montenegro as “unimportant”.

“Even if guilt were proved, there could be no question of war crimes, since Split was not in a war zone at the time and the inmates were Croatian citizens,” he said.

He concluded, “There is not a trace of evidence to prove that any of the defendants acted as charged.”

This time, the Croatian authorities have promised things will be different. There is a new set of judges, and strict security measures have been put in place. Witnesses enter the courtroom through a tunnel connected directly with the police station where they wait in a protected environment.

Of the 14 witnesses whom the prosecution wanted to come and testify from Serbia, eight have now been in court to give their accounts of torture and mistreatment. Another nine, who now live in Bosnia and Hercegovina, are also expected to testify later.

“It’s a first step,” said Jovan Nicic, speaking to IWPR from Split, where he is monitoring the trial for the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre. “Without this kind of regional cooperation between judiciaries and police forces, there is no chance that the full truth about war crimes will emerge.”

The head of the Croatian Helsinki Committee, Zarko Puhovski agrees, but he told IWPR that the most important thing is that the testimonies “are showing that what happened in Lora were violations of international law”.

“Before, during the first trial, there was an attempt to conceal that,” he said.

Over a period of four days this week, the eight men gave horrific details of the torture they had experienced and witnessed.

On October 24, Vojkan Zivkovic, a former member of the Yugoslav army, JNA, began by describing “seven days of hell in Lora” after he was captured in March 1992.

“They chopped my fingers, connected me to electricity and drilled my ears with wire,” he said.

Members of military police then dragged him out of the prison to a basement, where they let a four-year-old child hit him repeatedly with a baseball bat.

The next day, Milance Tosic, another former JNA soldier, spoke of how he was tortured and harassed during four months of captivity, “They connected me to electricity, beat me and burned me with cigarettes, forced me to sing [Croatian] nationalist songs and salute like the Ustasha [Second World War Croatian fascists].”

Tosic pointed out his alleged torturers in court.

Ex-JNA member Nenad Filipovic spent just one day in Lora after being captured during fighting close to Croatian town of Vinkovci. “That one day I'll never forget, because they beat me in a cell for three hours until I dropped down and started to beg them to stop the torture,” he said.

He pointed out the accused Davor Banic as one of his interrogators. Banic replied that this was a lie as he was not serving at the prison but was involved in military action at the time.

Filipovic answered back, “That was you! I recognise that savage look. I'll never forget it.”

Other former JNA members, Miroslav Petrovic and Darko Milijanovica, also testified about beatings and electric shock torture. Petrovic mentioned an especially cruel method of torture – forcing prisoners to drink salty water and then “frying them in the sun” for hours. He said that on one occasion, after such treatment, he was beaten so badly that his skin peeled off. He pointed out four of the accused as his alleged torturers.

Testimony also came from Goran Pantic, a JNA pilot who said he witnessed the torture of a prisoner called Knezevic by four of the accused - Anto Gudic, Andelko Botic and Tonce Vrkic - after the prisoner tried to escape. Knezevic later died.

Pantic, who, like other witnesses, stated that Tomislav Duic – the most senior military police officer among the accused – was involved in many incidents of torture. Duic has been on the run since the beginning of the first Lora trial.

Pantic also said that he saw accused Emilijo Bungar – another fugitive – biting a prisoner.

A restaurant worker named Dragomir Miljkovic told the court that he had been falsely imprisoned at Lora just because the military police wanted to take away his apartment.

Miljkovic described his torture, which again included beatings and electric shocks. But he said none of his torturers were in court.

Out of the original eight military policemen indicted, only four are appearing in person. Two never appeared even for the original trial, while two others absconded when their acquittal was overturned by the Supreme Court last year.

“It’s a big problem if only four persons are finally imprisoned for everything that happened at Lora,” said Nicic, even though he acknowledges that the other four may be convicted in absentia.

Another case concerning events at Lora is under investigation at the moment. Nicic says the testimonies from the current trial will be important elements in building the next case, in which he expects to see a further five to ten persons indicted.

Arriving back home in Serbia and Montenegro at the end of the week, those who had given testimony called on other potential witnesses to come forward.

“The Croatian and Serbian security, as well as [presiding] Judge Spomenka Tonkovic, were highly professional,” said witness Vojkan Zivkovic, when speaking to journalists at the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre.

He described how Judge Tonkovic intervened every time one of the accused tried to provoke or insult a witness, in clear contrast to the first Lora trial.

But on behalf of all the witnesses, Tonkovic stressed that not all those they regard as guilty are yet in the dock.

The Helsinki Committee’s Puhovski says the retrial is already demonstrating something that previously seemed impossible - the Croatian judiciary is being recognised as legitimate by neighbouring countries.

Within Croatia, the examination of crimes committed in Lora will help people accept that some war crimes were committed on their side, and recognise “that those who committed those crimes in our name have to be punished”, said Puhovski.

“We can say… the new, continuing practice of proper war crime trials in Croatia has begun,” he concluded.

Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR contributor based in Zagreb.