Six Croats Arrested for War Crimes

They took civilian captives to an improvised prison in the Ribnjak village, where they were physically and mentally tortured, then killed.

An indictment has been filed against six military police officers for the murder of 16 Serbian civilians near the village Pakrac in 1991. The police were part of the former military police in the 76^th independent battalion of the national guard. An investigation has been opened at the county court in Pozega.

Even though the commanders of the military police in Pakrac, Damir Kufner and Dario Simic, have been arrested a month ago for war crimes against civilians around the Pakrac area, the investigation into these crimes continues, writes Jutarnji List.

Besides those mentioned above, Zeljko Tutic, Tomislav Poletto and Ante Ivezic were arrested before Easter, and Pavle Vancas was arrested on Tuesday.

Via Mercep to new war criminals

These arrests occurred on the basis of materials that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sent the State Attorney, which were gathered during the investigation against Tomislav Mercep. Remember, Mercep’s actions were the subject of Hague investigations at one time, but there was never an indictment in his name.

Those materials cover crimes against the Serbian population in the Vukovar and Pakrac regions, that were committed by members of MUP’s (Ministry of Internal Affairs) reserve, who were commended by Mercep at the time.

During the investigation of the murders, the investigators found out that units outside of Mercep’s command committed the crimes, the military police unit of the 76^th battalion was a part of ZNG (national guard), and later HV (Croatian Army).

As early as 1991, investigations were made for the murder of civilians

Evidence shows that the police went to the scene of the crimes in 1991, made reports and filed indictments, but they were never acted upon.

The current indictment states that members of Kufner’s and Simic’s units entered Serbian houses and took people by force.

The justification for doing so was a search for weapons. However, when weapons were not found, they took civilians captive anyway.

They took the prisoners to an improvised prison in Ribnjak, where they were physically and psychologically abused, and finally killed. Most often this was on the banks of fish ponds, where they would throw the bodies into the water.

In multiple cases, writes Jutarnji List, guards of the fish ponds would find bodies that the water would carry to the banks.