Testifying at the trial of two Croatian ex policemen charged with war crimes against Serbs in Sisak, a mother recalled her futile search for truth about her daughter’s murder.
Vera Solar, the mother of 19-years old girl killed in September 1991 in Sisak, testified on Wednesday that one of the defendants, Vladimir Milankovic, talked to her arrogantly when she met him in 1995 trying to find out what happened to her daughter.
Solar also said that a man called her several years ago, telling her who killed her daughter. She passed on the details to the prosecutors in Sisak but nothing happened.
Vera's daughter Ljubica's unexplained death became the public symbol of the unwillingness of the local judiciary to investigate war crimes perpetrated by the Croatian forces in Sisak.
Ljubica was shot through the window of her boyfriend's apartment on September 16, 1991. No proper investigation happened and nobody was ever prosecuted.
But her mother Vera has campaigned to keep the crime in the public eye. Her personal efforts, supported by independent media and human rights NGO's, have been greatly responsible for the EU's close attention to the prosecution of war crimes committed in Sisak by the Croatian forces.
On Tuesday, former policeman Adam Garvanovic testified that special police unit „Wolves“, which allegedly perpetrated war crimes in Sisak, consisted mainly of ex convicts.
Garvanovic, who was a member of the “Wolves“, said that the unit was "formed politically, not by police“.
He said that some policemen broke into the apartments belonging to Serbs and Yugoslav People's Army officers in Sisak throwing the owners out.
Garvanovic added that the reserve police units mainly consisted of the bar owners in Sisak who were members of the then ruling Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, party and friends of Djuro Brodarac.
Brodarac, the police commander in Sisak, was also indicted alongside the two defendants, but he died in custody of a heart attack in July last year.
Vladimir Milankovic, Brodarac's war time deputy, is charged with allowing, encouraging and failing to investigate the physical and psychological torture, illegal detention and humiliation of Croatian Serb civilians in the Sisak area.
He is also charged with personally torturing and ordering the illegal arrest of a large number of Serb civilians from Sisak, which resulted in the death of 24 people.
Drago Bosnjak, former member of the unit known as “the Wolves”, is accused of organising and leading a group that detained and tortured Serb civilians, allegedly killing eight of the 24 victims named in the indictment.
The trial continues October 9.
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.