Croatia Convicts Bosnian Serb of Detention Camp Abuses

Zagreb County Court on Tuesday handed down a first-instance verdict convicting former Bosnian Serb Army officer Dane Lukajic of physically abusing prisoners at the Manjaca camp during wartime, and sentenced him to six years in prison, local media reported.

The verdict was made public on Thursday after the prosecution and defence issued their closing statements on Monday.

Regional television network N1 reported that the prosecution said that Lukajic's statement in his own defence that he had "always been against the application of force" was not credible.

"It is illusory to expect that Lukajic, given his position in the camp, was unaware of the abuse and torture in Manjaca," N1 quoted prosecutor Robert Petrovecki as saying.

Lukajic was tried for ordering his Bosnian Serb Army subordinates at the Manjaca prison camp near the Bosnian town of Banja Luka to beat and injure two Croatian Defence Council, HVO members and three Croatian Defence Forces, HOS detainees.

He was also charged with personally inflicting serious injuries on one of the HOS prisoners.

The Croatian State Attorney's Office said that he was the leader of a security services operational team responsible for collecting intelligence from prisoners of war from the middle of June 1992 until September 16 the same year.

The first-instance verdict can be appealed.

Croatian police arrested Lukajic as he was entering the country in June last year. His case is one of the rare war crimes trials in Croatia that are not being conducted in absentia.

The Bosnian Serb-run Manjaca camp operated from 1991-92 and briefly again in 1995. The majority of prisoners were Croat and Bosniak soldiers and civilians.