Ivana Žanić

The Humanitarian Law Centre NGO published a dossier on Thursday about the crimes committed by the Serbian Volunteer Guard paramilitary unit, also known as Arkan's Tigers, and urged the authorities in Belgrade to prosecute any suspects who are still alive.

The decision of the local assembly of Pantelej, a municipality of the city of Nis, the biggest city in southern Serbia, to make a convicted war criminal, Vladimir Lazarevic, an honorary citizen is not surprising and represents part of the "petty political game" of the ruling party, NGO activists told BIRN.

The Humanitarian Law Centre said on Monday that it has filed a criminal complaint to the Serbian war crimes prosecution against Vladimir Arsic and Radmilo Zeljaja, senior officers of the Bosnian Serb Army's 43rd Motorised Brigade during wartime.

The Humanitarian Law Centre NGO said in a report published on Friday that the pandemic slowed down war crimes investigations and trials that were already taking too long to complete in Serbia.

A state of emergency was imposed in Serbia from March 15 to May 6 2020, and war crimes trials resumed at the end of May under special protective measures.

Ultranationalist politician and war criminal Vojislav Seselj and members of his Serbian Radical Party on Wednesday evening physically forced anti-war activists out of a building in Belgrade's Stari Grad municipality where Seselj was promoting his new book denying that the Srebrenica massacres were genocide.

The Humanitarian Law Centre NGO said in a report published on Wednesday that in the summer of 1995, the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs forcibly mobilised around 10,000 refugees and took them back to territories under the control of the Bosnian Serb Army in Bosnia and the rebel Serb-run Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia.

A new report by the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre, published on Wednesday, said there has been no progress this year so far in the implementation of Serbia's national strategy for the prosecution of war crimes.

A memorial gathering to mark the 21st anniversary of the attack on Orahovac/Rahovec was held on Thursday at Orlovaca cemetery in Belgrade, where most of the victims of the violence were buried.