106 Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January – June 2007 previously believed to be at large in Russia – in the Montenegrin seaside resort of Budva. Proceedings continued against former Yugoslav National Army (JNA)officers known as the “Vukovar Three”, indicted for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war for their responsibility for the evacuation of at least 264 Croatian men and two women from Vukovar Hospital in 1991, and their subsequent murder. Proceedings continued against six senior political, police and military officials indicted for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war in Kosovo. Former deputy Serbian president Milan Milutinović, former deputy prime minister Nikola Šainović, former General Chief of Staff (later Minister of Defence) Dragoljub Odjanić, former police colonel general Sreten Lukić (later Assistant Interior Minister), former Yugoslav Army colonel generals Nebojša Pavković and Vladimir Lazarević were jointly charged with crimes against humanity and grave violations of the Geneva Convention. In June, the Chief Prosecutor criticised the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) for failing to protect some 15 prosecution witnesses due to testify against Ramush Haradinaj, fearing that insufficient evidence against the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader and former Prime Minister of Kosovo might lead to proceedings being dropped. On 26 February, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in a case brought by BiH that while Serbia had not committed genocide at Srebrenica, Serbia had breached the Genocide Convention by failing to prevent genocide at Srebrenica and to punish those responsible for it; the ICJ called on Serbia to honour its obligations under the Genocide Convention by handing former general Ratko Mladić, indicted for genocide and complicity in genocide, over to the Tribunal. Amnesty International Serbia Domestic war crimes trials (Update to AI Index: EUR 01/001/2007). Between 32 and 35 cases of war crimes were reportedly under investigation by the War Crimes Chamber of the Belgrade District Court although the number of prosecutions remained low. On 11 April four former members of the “Scorpions” paramilitary unit were convicted of war crimes for the killing in 1995 of six Bosniak civilians from Srebrenica at Godinjske bare near Trnovo in BiH, and sentenced to between five and 20 years’ imprisonment. The prosecutor appealed the acquittal of one defendant and the five-year sentence of one of the convicted men. The Humanitarian Law Centre, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), considered decisions by the Supreme Court reversing guilty verdicts in cases appealed from the War Crimes Chamber to be unfounded. The court had in December 2006 overturned the conviction for war crimes of JNA soldiers who took part in the murder of non-Serbs at Ovčara farm in 1991 (see “Vukovar Three”, above); the retrial began in March. The trial continued of eight former police officers indicted on 25 April 2006 for the murder of 48 ethnic Albanian civilians in Suva Reka in March 1999. Proceedings had opened in October 2006. The war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vučkević, assisted by the Tuzla cantonal prosecutor, continued investigations into the killing and deportation of Bosniaks by Serbian paramilitary forces near Zvornik in BiH in June 1992. Enforced disappearances On 28 February four further suspects were arrested on suspicion of murder of the three Albanian-American Bytiçi brothers in Kosovo in July 1999. AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007