Two senior Serbian officials on Tuesday criticized official Belgrade for not doing enough to solve crimes committed against Kosovo Serbs.
Commission for Missing Persons chief Veljko Odalovic told the “Unpunished Crimes” gathering that the authorities in Belgrade had “taken part in events which were not good for the state”. There are no inmates convicted of war crimes in Serbian prisons, they have been freed or pardoned, he said.
According to Odalovic, many crimes committed against Kosovo Serbs and non-Albanians have not been solved and did not get an epilogue before the Hague Tribunal and EULEX and UNMIK courts.
Serbian deputy War Crimes Prosecutor Miroljub Vitorovic agreed that official Belgrade was to blame for failure to punish criminals. “We can be angry with the Hague and Pristina but I am more angy with Belgrade,” Vitorovic said.
He recalled a 2013 Belgrade Appeals Court decision to pardon members of the so-called Gnjilane Group who had been sentenced for war crimes, saying it was not a judiciary decision. “I don’t know the reason, whether it was ignorance or ill intent, but this was not a judiciary decision,” he said and explained that the Appeals Court freed the KLA troops because it ruled that the war was over at the time of their crimes.
Members of the Gnjilane Group were arrested in southern Serbia and sentenced to prison terms for murder, torture, arson and other crimes committed against civilians.
