Representatives of the Association of Vukovar Attorneys 1991 and MEP Predrag Fred Matic on Friday handed over a letter to the Serbian embassy calling for former POWs to be allowed to visit the Stajicevo prison camp, as had been previously promised by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

The letter was presented to an embassy representative by the association’s president Zoran Sangut, his deputy Pero Kovacevic and Matic, all former POWs at Stajicevo.

The Stajicevo prison camp was located near Zrenjanin in Serbia. The former International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague claimed that more than 1,700 were detained there.

The letter calls on the Serbian President to fulfil his promise at a July 2016 meeting to facilitate a visit to Stajicevo and for a memorial plaque to be placed there.

That meeting took place under the mediation of Member of the German Bundestag Josip Juratovic. Kovacevic, who attended it, said today that in addition to saying that he would come to Stajicevo himself, Vucic announced that he would also invite the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel to visit it too.

Kovacevic said that all the details and protocol of an official visit had already been agreed with Vucic’s advisor Veran Matic, but that Serbia cancelled everything a week before the planned event.

“I’ve had a marble slab in my garage for 13 years and I bitterly joke: ‘It’s lucky that it’s marble and won’t rot,'” MEP Matic said on Friday.

“However, we are not giving up the intention to one day put up that memorial plaque so that a candle can be lit and flowers laid in a dignified way for the people who were detained there, especially those who died there.”

“The next step is up to Serbia,” Matic said.