Wartime sexual violence

President Atifete Jahjaga has demanded more institutional support for wartime rape victims, saying too many people in Kosovo still regard the issue as a taboo subject.

A Bosnian State Investigation and Protection Agency investigator told Bosnian Serb ex-soldier Petar Kovacevic’s trial that the defendant’s brother told him that the indictee murdered a man in 1992.

The delivery of a petition urging the United Nations to produce a report on wartime rape in Kosovo, signed by over 115,000 people, has been delayed by the country’s recent political crisis.

Former Bosnian Serb soldier Gligor Begovic went on trial for fatal beatings and sexual abuse of prisoners at the Batkovic detention centre in the Bijeljina municipality in 1992.

A defence witness told Ratko Mladic’s war crimes trial that he didn’t see Serb fighters abusing Bosniak prisoners at the Susica detention camp in the Vlasenica area in 1992.

Testifying in defence of the former commander of Bosnian Serb Army, Ratko Mladic, Rajko Sarenac said what he knew of the personality of the accused stood 'in stark contrast to the crimes of genocide that he is accused of'.

A defence witness told the trial of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic that Bosniaks started the conflict in Rogatica in spring 1992 by attacking Serb villages.

A prosecution witness told the trial of three ex-policemen accused of abusing non-Serb prisoners that detainees held in a student dormitory in Bileca in 1992 were beaten up.

A prosecution witness testified at Bosnian Serb ex-soldier Petar Kovacevic’s trial that his mother told him how the defendant killed one neighbour and raped another near Visegrad in 1992.

A defence witness told Ratko Mladic’s trial that humanitarian convoys transported munitions and food for the Bosnian Army during wartime and some international military observers scouted Serb positions.