Jovan Lipovac

The Serbian Prosecutor's Office for War Crimes urged Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday to convict four defendants accused of involvement in the abduction and subsequent killing of passengers from a train at Strpci station in February 1993 and give them "the maximum prison sentences".

Ratko Kovacevic, a medical expert commissioned by the court to analyse the psychological condition of witness Mitrasin Glisic, told the trial of four Serb ex-fighters at Belgrade Higher Court on Thursday that the witness does not have any mental illnesses.

Ljubisa Vasiljevic, a wartime Serb paramilitary fighter who was one of five defendants in the Strpci trial at Belgrade Higher Court, has died.

Belgrade Higher Court told BIRN that Vasiljevic died on July 6 and that "due to that fact, the court adopted a decision to suspend the proceedings [against him] on August 16, 2021".

Mico Jovicic, a wartime volunteer fighter for Bosnian Serb forces, told Belgrade Higher Court that all five defendants on trial for the kidnapping and killing of 20 passengers from a train at Strpci station in Bosnia and Herzegovina were at the crime scenes when the offences were committed.

The first year of the trial in Belgrade for the abduction and killing of 20 passengers from a train at Strpci station in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war in 1993 has heard testimony from relatives of the victims, other passengers, policemen, Bosnian Serb Army soldiers and the defendants themselves, as a fuller picture of the crime more than 26 years ago began to emerge.

Radojko Jesic, who was a passenger on the train that was halted at Strpci station on February 27, 1993 before a subsequent massacre by Serb fighters, told Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday that he saw his Bosniak acquaintance entering the train in the town of Uzice but could not find him again after Strpci.

Eyewitness Zoran Bogetic told the trial of five Bosnian Serb paramilitaries at Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday that a passenger who was sitting in his train compartment on February 27, 1993 was taken away by two fighters.

Railway personnel and passengers from the train that was stopped in the small Bosnian town of Strpci on February 27, 1993, when paramilitaries seized 20 passengers who were later killed, told Belgrade Higher Court on Monday recollect how no one tried to stop the abductions of 20 non-Serbs from the train.

BELGRADE - The Trial Chamber of the Belgrade Appellate Court decided to annul the detention sentence for the indictees charged with the crime in Strpci and release them from prison pending trial, Tanjug learnt from lawyer Nebojsa Perovic.

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.