The Zadar police on Thursday pressed charges against Zoran Tadic, 59, for war crimes – the murder of 30 civillians and 13 Croatian soldiers in the Dalmatian village of Skabrnja in November 1991, during the 1991-95 war in Croatia.

According to media reports, Zoran Tadic, originally from the Serbian town of Loznica, was at the time at the helm of local Serb paramilitaries in the area of the town of Benkovac, near Skabrnja.

An extensive investigation into the Skabrnja atrocities showed that Tadic was among the commanders who ordered attacks against the villages of Skarbnja and Nadin in the Dalmatian hinterland, and that he committed crimes that were in breach of the Geneva Convention, said the head of the Zadar crime police unit, Bore Mrsic.

Today, Tadic resides in Sydney, Australia, and holds Australian citizenship, the Zadar police reported.

The local police also filed a separate criminal complaint against Ratko Mladic, a Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) officer at the time, holding him responsible for the suffering of local residents in November 1991.

On November 18, 1991, Serb rebels, supported by the JNA Knin Corps commanded by Mladic, broke the resistance of Croatian forces in Skabrnja. Forty three Croatian civilians and soldiers were killed in the village. During the time he village was held by JNA, until its liberation in August 1995, the number of Skabrnja victims rose to 86, with additional two thousand people forced to leave their homes. Another six villagers were killed by leftover landmines after the war.

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