Crime in Velepromet
After the Vukovar County State’s Attorney’s Office (hereinafter: the ŽDO) forwarded on 8 April 2009 a letter to the Vukovar County Court in which it dropped charges against the defendant Stanimir Avramović, the Vukovar County Court passed a ruling No. K-66/07, dated 30 April 2009, quashing the proceedings against him.
INDICTMENT (SUMMARY)
The indictment issued by the Vukovar ŽDO No. DO-K-12/99, dated 9 January 2003, charged the defendant Stanimir Avramović that, together with other defendants, following the occupation of Vukovar on 18 November 1991 by the so-called JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) and associated paramilitary formations, as a member of those formations, he was taking away captured members of the Croatian National Guard (ZNG) and civilians from the Vukovar hospital and other parts of the city, who had previously been expelled from their homes and shelters, and gathered them at the collective centre of the “Velepromet” warehouse in Vukovar where citizens were separated along the ethnic lines. On that occasion, citizens were deprived of money, gold and other personal belongings; they were physically abused in different manners, while a large number of persons were killed. The defendant took those and other detainees and civilians to detention camps in SR Yugoslavia – Stajićevo and Sremska Mitrovica, acting contrary to Article 3, 27, 31 and 33 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War dated 12 August 1949, in relation to Article 4 of the II Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions which prohibits inhumane treatment, violence to the life and physical well-being of persons, in particular murder, cruel treatment and torture, outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatments, intimidation, physical coercion in order to obtain information, looting and other reprisals against persons who do not take a direct part in hostilities, including members of the armed forces who laid down their weapons and persons incapacitated for combat for any reason, thus
– he captured detainees telling them: “We trusted you for 40 years, and now you want to butcher us” and hitting them with a rifle butt and legs,
therefore, having breached the rules of the international law, he tortured and inhumanely treated civilians during the occupation, causing them great suffering and injuries to physical integrity and applied measures of intimidation,
thus, he committed a criminal act against the values protected by the international law, a war crime against civilians described and punishable pursuant to Article 120, paragraph 1 of the Basic Criminal Law of the Republic of Croatia (hereinafter: the OKZ RH).
GENERAL DATA
The Vukovar County Court
Case file number: K-66/07
War Crime Council: Judge Nikola Bešenski, Council President; Judge Stjepan Margić, Council member and Judge Željko Marin, Council member
Indictment: issued by the Vukovar County State’s Attorney’s Office, No. DO-K-12/99, dated 9 January 2003
Prosecuting attorney: Božidar Piljić, the Vukovar County State’s Attorney
Criminal act: war crime against civilians referred to in Article 120, paragraph 1 of the OK ZRH
Defendant: Stanimir Avramović, tried in absentia
Defence counsel: Vojislav Ore, a lawyer practising in Vukovar
MONITORING REPORTS
During the third (second repeated) main hearing, the Vukovar County State’s Attorney’s Office forwarded on 8 April 2009 a letter to the Vukovar County Court in which it dropped charges against the defendant Stanimir Avramović, and then the Vukovar County Court passed a ruling No. K-66/07, dated 30 April 2009, quashing the criminal proceedings against the aforementioned defendant.
The defendant Stanimir Avramović was tried in absentia.
You can read the summary of the proceedings for the crime in Velepromet here. (in Croatian)
