Former member of the Yugoslav Army, Toplica Milladinovic, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes against Kosovo Albanians in the villages around Peja in 1999.
According to the announcement published on the website of the High Court in Belgrade on April 24, six former members of the Yugoslav Army were convicted of war crimes. Predrag Vuković was sentenced to 13 years in prison, Abullah Sokić to 12, Sinisha Misić to five, while Lazar Pavllović, Slavisha Kastratović and Boban Bogičević were sentenced to two years in prison each.
Meanwhile, Vellko Koriqanin and Millan Ivanovic were acquitted of the charges.
According to the indictment, former members of the 177th Detachment of the territorial army of the Yugoslav Army, (known as “Jackals”), participated in massacres against Kosovo Albanians in the villages of Zahaq, Lubeniq, Qyshk and Pavlan during April and May of of 1999.
The defendants, as stated in the indictment, participated in the killings and destruction of civilian property.
Prosecutors said that Toplica Milladinovic, as commander of the detachment, had ordered the deportation of Albanian civilians and that he had knowledge of the murders and thefts during the forced displacement.
In the indictment it was said that the murders were carried out in a cruel and insidious manner, as in most cases the victims were shot in the back. Most of the victims’ bodies were then burned so that they could not be identified.
The decision of the High Court of Belgrade can be appealed.
Natasha Kandiq from the non-governmental organization, the Humanitarian Law Fund, after the decision that human life is not important.
“My feeling, after 14 years since the start of the trial for the killing of civilians in Qyshk, Zahaq, Lubenic and Pavlan, is that human life is not important in judicial proceedings”, she said through a statement issued by the Fund for Humanitarian Law.
The trial for this case started in 2010. The first decision was made in 2014, but the Court of Appeal of Serbia annulled it in 2015.
