Indictment in Strpci case soon to come

BELGRADE - The Serbian Office of the Prosecutor for War Crimes has completed the investigation against 5 suspects in the Strpci case and will raise an indictment in the next few days based on the evidence collected, the office stated on Friday.

according to the statement, War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic ordered an investigation against Gojko Lukic, Ljubisa Vasiljevic, Disko Vasiljevic, Jovan Lipovac and Dragana Djekic on suspicion of war crimes against the civilian population.

The joint investigation team interviewed more than a 100 witnesses in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina within 18 months and collected the evidence needed to raise an indictment, the statement says.

An operation organised by the office resulted in the arrest of 15 people, 5 in Serbia and 10 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, on December 4, 2014. These suspects were former members of the Army of Republika Srpska and the paramilitary unit Osvetnici (Avengers).

They are alleged to have taken off the train on the Belgrade-Bar rail line 20 passengers, the citizens of the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, including 18 Bosniaks, one Croat, and one more person, a foreign citizen of probably African or Arab origin, whose identity was never determined. The crime occurred on March 27, 1993 near Strpci, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The arrested are suspected of taking the kidnapped passengers to a school in Prelovo, where they beat and robbed them, and afterwards transporting them to an abandoned house near the river Drina, where they shot them and threw their bodies into the river.

The remains of Rasim Coric, Jusuf Rastoder, Halil Zupcevic and Ilijaz Licina were found in the vicinity of the lake Perucac in 2010, while the search for the other bodies continues.