Former Yugoslav army officer set to appear before UN tribunal

A former Yugoslav army officer will make his initial appearance tomorrow before the United Nations International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on multiple counts of war crimes allegedly committed during the 1991 assault on Vukovar.

Capt. Miroslav Radic faces two counts relating to wilful killing and causing great suffering. He is also charged with two counts of violations of the laws of war and another two counts of crimes against humanity.

The charges stem from the events of November 1991 when the federal Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) surrounded the city of Vukovar and engaged in a sustained artillery assault on the city, according the indictment. In the last days of the siege, several hundred people sought refuge at Vukovar Hospital.

JNA and Serb paramilitary soldiers - under the command or supervision of Captain Radic, Mile Mrksic, Veselin Sljivancanin and aided by Slavko Dokmanovic - removed about 400 non-Serb individuals from the Vukovar Hospital and then transported around 300 of them to a farm building in Ovcara, where they beat them for several hours.

Afterwards, soldiers transported their non-Serb captives, in groups of about 10 to 20, to a site between the Ovcara farm and Grabovo, where they shot killed at least 198 men and 2 women. Bulldozer buried the bodies of the victim in a mass grave at the same location.

Captain Radic commanded a special infantry unit of the JNA, which was a component of the Guards Brigade from Belgrade.