18 Sep 14
After 45 ethnic Albanians killed in Kosovo were exhumed from a mass grave in Serbia, why has Belgrade not prosecuted officials who ordered the criminal operation to hide the bodies?

Sian Jones
Amnesty International

The bodies of almost 900 Kosovo Albanians who were ‘disappeared’ by Serb forces have been exhumed in Serbia so far. By 2002, some 744 mortal remains had been found in mass graves on Interior Ministry land at Batajnica near Belgrade and 70 at Petrovo Selo; another 84 were found in Lake Perucac.

These bodies have been returned to their families. Others are believed to have been destroyed in industrial furnaces in Surdulica and Trepča.

Some 45 bodies – again thought to be those of Kosovo Albanians – have been exhumed from the Rudnica quarry near Raska in recent months. In Kosovo, the relatives of those still missing are waiting to find out if their family members are amongst the recovered bodies.

Amnesty International has long urged that the investigation and prosecution of the cover-up operation should have been a priority for the Serbian Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor. Indeed, more than 10 years ago, on June 24, 2003, Vladan Batic, then Minister of Justice, referring to investigations at Batajnica and Petrovo Selo, indicated in a media interview that these would be amongst the first cases to be prosecuted under the law which entered into force in July 2003, creating the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor.

In 2004, the UN Human Rights Committee urged the authorities to investigate and prosecute; but in 2011 the same committee, in their concluding observations, found that, “no significant progress has been made to investigate, prosecute, and punish those responsible for the killing of more than eight hundred persons whose bodies were found in mass graves in and near Batajnica, and to compensate the relatives of the victims”.

In July 2012, in its response to the Human Rights Committee, the government confirmed that the investigation had been a priority for the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor since its inception, and that more than 80 witnesses had been interviewed.

Yet, despite an investigation into all the available evidence, the War Crimes Investigation Service, a Ministry of Interior police department, had not been able to provide the War Crimes Prosecutor with a “reliable conclusion” on the identity of any of the alleged perpetrators.

In February 2011, Vlastimir Djordjevic, former Assistant Interior Minister and chief of the Public Security Department (RJB), responsible for all RJB units in Kosovo, was convicted on three counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes.

He had been indicted for his responsibility for participation in “the joint criminal enterprise [including that] with [Vlajko] Stojiljkovic and others, he took a lead role in the planning, instigating, ordering and implementation of the programme of concealment by members of the RJB and subordinated units of the crime of murder, in coordination with persons in the RDB [state security] and in the VJ [Yugoslav Army]”.

With the exception of Djordjevic, not one member of the RJB, nor any of the police or military commanders who coordinated and implemented the cover-up operation, has been brought to justice, despite the ample evidence provided in proceedings at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

In May 2013, the war crimes prosecutor’s office issued a press release stating that two police officers, one allegedly a serving officer in the gendarmerie, had been arrested on suspicion of committing war crimes against at least 65 Albanian civilians, and of the “deportation and transportation of the bodies of those killed in the village of Ljubenic to the police centre in Batajnica”.

They were among five individuals charged with participation in the murder of at least 65 Kosovo Albanian civilians in Ljubenićc village in Kosovo, during April and May 1999. They were also charged with the deportation and transfer of the victims’ remains from Ljubenic to the Interior Minstry training ground in Batajnica, for burial in a mass grave.
Exhumation of the Raska mass grave in Serbia.

Amnesty International hopes that this is part of a wider indictment, hinted at in the war crimes prosecutor’s office’s 2013 report, and in a media interview in October 2013 when Chief Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic stated that the Batajnica case had been processed, that unnamed persons were under investigation, and that indictments would be filed on completion of the investigation.

However, on November 22, 2013, when the prosecutor announced that an indictment had been raised in the Ljubenic case, no reference was made to the transfer of remains to Batajnica.

When proceedings opened on September 8, 2014 the indictment had still not been made public, but Amnesty International has been reliably informed that charges relating to the transfer of remains to Batajnica are not included in the indictment.

While some of those responsible for the killing of Kosovo Albanians in 1999 have been or are being prosecuted, there is still no indication that any senior officials responsible for the cover-up operation will be indicted.

Serbia ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CPED) and recognised the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of victims in 2011.

Although the enforced disappearance of Kosovo Albanians took place in 1999, under international law, they are considered as a continuing crime as long as the fate and whereabouts of the individual remain unclarified.

The CPED places an obligation on Serbia to investigate and prosecute, and to ensure that the relatives of the missing are provided with adequate reparation, including the right to know what happened to their family members, and to compensation.

In addition, the failure of the authorities to inform family members of the fate and whereabouts of a person subjected to enforced disappearance, and their failure to conduct prompt, impartial, independent and thorough investigations into cases of enforced disappearance can amount to a violation of family member’s right not be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment (under article seven of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and article three of the European Convention on Human Rights).

Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, to which Serbia is a state party, enforced disappearances may also amount to crimes against humanity, “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, directed against any civilian population”.

How long will it be before the senior officials who are suspected of covering up the evidence and members of the Public Security Department who participated in the deportation and transfer of the bodies of Kosovo Albanians to Serbia are prosecuted for crimes against humanity?

If the police department responsible for investigating these crimes is unable, after 10 years, to identify the suspects, then surely it is time to provide the Serbian war crimes prosecutor’s office with additional investigators and analysts, or to reform the War Crimes Investigation Service into an impartial and professional unit, with the capacity to carry out prompt, independent, thorough and effective investigations?

Sian Jones is a researcher at Amnesty International. A Serbian translation of Amnesty International’s report, ‘Serbia: Ending Impunity for Crimes under International Law’, will be launched in Belgrade in October. This article was originally published in the Humanitarian Law Centre’s bulletin ‘Towards Accession Towards Justice’.