The Serbian Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor has filed an indictment against Darko Jankovic for crimes against civilians committed in the Celopek camp in Zvornik, Bosnia in 1992.
The indictment was filed against Darko Jankovic from Kraljevo, Serbia, at the War Crimes Court in Belgrade.
According to the indictment, Jankovic was a member of the territorial defence unit commanded by Stojan Pivarski in Zvornik in May and June 1992, and participated in crimes committed at the Celopek Cultural Centre, the Ekonomija farm, and Ciglana, where at least 13 civilians were killed, and others tortured and treated in an inhumane way.
The indictee has been in detention since January 30 this year.
The court in Belgrade in 2008 convicted Dragan Slavkovic, Ivan Korac and Sinisa Filipovic, all three members of the Zute ose (Yellow Wasps) unit, along with Pivarski, for the Zvornik war crimes. The men were sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison. Dragutin Dragicevic was acquitted on all charges.
Zvornik, a city on the river Drina close to the border with Serbia, was occupied in May 1992 when the Arkan Tigers, a Serb paramilitary unit backed by the Yugoslav Peoples Army, JNA, entered and expelled most of the non Serb population and killed more than 1,000 people.
The Arkan Tigers were led by Zeljko Raznjatovic, widely known as Arkan, who was indicted for war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was killed in 2000 in Belgrade. His unit was created under the the control of the state security in Serbia, but it acted independently during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Celopke was one of the places where people were detained, tortured and killed when Zvornik was occupied. At the centre men who were detained were allegedly subject to sexual abuse, including rape, crimes for which no one has yet been charged.
According to the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Center, HLC, an organisation that monitors war crimes trials in Serbia, those who have thus far been convicted for crimes committed in Zvornik were volunteers from Serbia who were organised to come to Zvornik. According to the HLC, the Serbian Ministry of Interior knew about this and provided support to the volunteers.
A report published by the HLC in 2008, after the judgment, mentioned the nickname Pufi, who was not arrested at that time, as the perpetrator of serious crimes in Celopek, together with Dusan Vuckovic Repic, who died after the war.
See also: The Last Taboo
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Timeline of events in the case against 13 former Serb fighters charged with committing war crimes in the villages of Cuska, Zahac, Ljubenic and Pavlac in Kosovo in 1999.