Croatia Convicts Former Serb Paramilitary of Killing Civilian

Former Serb paramilitary fighter Zoran Roksandic was sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison for committing a war crime by killing a female civilian and attempting to murder of her husband in a village near the central Croatian town of Glina in 1991, Croatian media reported on Tuesday.

Explaining the verdict, the judge at Zagreb County Court said that witnesses' testimony indisputably established that Roksandic, as a member of forces of the unrecognised wartime Republic of Serbian Krajina statelet, killed Ljuba Murtic and tried to kill her husband Petar Murtic on November 18, 1991.

According to the indictment, during an armed conflict between Croatian forces and Serb paramilitaries, Roksandic went to the family house of the married couple with the intent to kill them because they were Croats.

After the couple left the house and went into the yard, Roksandic fired several shots from an automatic rifle at them, inflicting multiple injuries on the woman, from which she died, while her husband remained unharmed.

"With the examination of witnesses… the circle of indications that Zoran Roksandic was the perpetrator of the criminal offence was closed. The court considers that the sentence is appropriate for the criminal offence that was committed," the judge explained.

Roksandic was tried in his absence and is unavailable to the Croatian authorities because he lives in Serbia.