Two men, arrested in the eastern village of Negoslavci on suspicion of involvement in war crimes, have been reported by police for taking part, as members of Serb paramilitary forces, in the torture of persons captured in Vukovar and taken to the Ovcara farm outside the city on 20 November 1991.

The Police Directorate said on Thursday that the two men, born in 1948 and 1963, were arrested in a police operation conducted with the assistance of the Osijek County Prosecutor’s Office and the Security-Intelligence Agency (SOA).

The suspects, aged 43 and 28 at the time, are believed to have been involved, as members of Croatian Serb paramilitary forces, on 20 November 1991, “together with several other persons, in the grave physical abuse of a larger number of persons taken from the Vukovar Hospital to the Ovcara farm as prisoners.”

They are suspected of having forced, together with other paramilitaries, the captured members of the Croatian Army and the Croatian National Guard, police and other Croatian war volunteers, as well as a smaller number of civilians, to run between two rows of soldiers who inflicted corporal punishment on them.

As they did so, the prisoners were hit with automatic weapons, wooden clubs, metal sticks and other objects, they were punched, kicked and hit with parts of military equipment, all of which inflicted severe injuries on them, police said.

The two suspects have been remanded in custody and a report has been filed against them with the Osijek County Prosecutor’s Office.

War crimes priority for Police Directorate

The Ministry of the Interior has said that war crimes investigations are a priority for the police and that a special task force was set up for that purpose in 2018.

Very quickly the task force achieved results in complex investigations into war crimes committed at the Ovcara farm in 1991 and later during the occupation of Vukovar by the Yugoslav People’s Army, the Territorial Defence units of local Serb rebels, and Serb paramilitaries, the ministry says.

In 2018 and 2019, 49 people were reported for committing 53 crimes against 352 people and the crimes qualify as crimes against humanity and human dignity.

In the first nine months of 2020, eight people were reported for a total of 36 crimes against humanity and human dignity.

All the crimes were committed during the 1991-95 Homeland War.

The criminal reports include crimes committed against 67 people in Cetingrad, Sibenik, Vodice, Zaton and Rasline, and Meki Doci near Obrovac.