Human rights NGOs Documenta and the Osijek Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights on Monday presented a report on the monitoring of war crimes trials in 2020 and 2021 in Croatia, which said that as many as 70 percent of trials against members of Serb paramilitary units and the Yugoslav People's Army in the 1991-95 war were trials in absentia.

“War crime trials in absentia are still a prevailing trend, and they refer exclusively to cases against members of Serb paramilitary units and the Yugoslav People’s Army. In the reporting period from 2020 to 2021, at the level of four competent courts, 41 out of 59, or 70 percent, of trials were conducted against indictees who were out of reach of Croatian authorities,” said Vesna Terselic from the Documenta NGO.

Out of the total number of monitored cases, 40 (91 percent) were trials against members of Serb paramilitary units and the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), while in 2021 there were 38 (90 percent) such proceedings.

At the same time, four trials each were conducted against members of Croatian forces and the Bosnian Croat HVO forces, which included “cases against Branimir Glavas, war crimes at the Lora military prison in Split, and for war crimes at Kuline,” state agency Hina said.

Overall, criminal proceedings were conducted against 174 indictees – 77 were tried in 2020, including 63 members of Serb paramilitary forces and the JNA, while in 2021 trials were conducted against 101 indictees, 88 of whom were members of Serb paramilitary units and the JNA.

Persons convicted in absentia can request a retrial

Noting that war crimes trials were no longer a priority for the Croatian judiciary after the country joined the EU in 2013, Terselic concluded that public interest in such trials had decreased, as most of them were conducted in the indictees’ absence.

“In absentia trials are hardly acceptable because persons convicted in absentia can request a retrial,” she said, describing war crimes trials as a “slow process of having justice served.”

Veselinka Kastratovic of the Osijek Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights warned about shortcomings and insufficient cooperation between regional justice systems in prosecuting war crimes. “What is most concerning is the fact that a number of agreements and conventions on regional cooperation have been signed, yet cooperation is non-existent,” she said.

Kastratovic noted that numerous witnesses of crimes that happened almost 30 years ago lacked the wish or will to testify, and she also pointed to the still numerous unclear circumstances of the 1991 murder of Osijek police department head Josip Reihl-Kir.

“His killer was prosecuted, but there remains the question of who was behind Reihl-Kir’s murder and if we have the strength to face ‘our crimes’,” Kastratovic said.