ALEKSIĆ: WE WILL SUE NATO IN JUNE OVER GENERAL PAVKOVIĆ’S DEATH

BELGRADE, MAY 18 /SRNA/ – Attorney Srđan Aleksić announced that on June 10 he will file a lawsuit against NATO over the death of General Nebojša Pavković, because high concentrations of depleted uranium and heavy metals were found in his body, indicating that the two cancers he developed were the result of depleted uranium used during the 1999 aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia.

Aleksić told SRNA that he would file the lawsuit regardless of NATO's claim to immunity granted in 2005 allowing it to pass vehicles through the territory of the then state union. "In my understanding, immunity can in no way be granted retroactively, nor can an international organisation be exempted from responsibility for killing people," Aleksić emphasized. He claims that the immunity granted to NATO is contrary to international regulations and agreements, above all the Strasbourg Human Rights Protection Charter. "When immunity is granted to an organisation, our citizens are left without judicial protection," Aleksić explained. He stressed that this is contrary to the law and that he will challenge the immunity in court, adding that he expects the Higher Court in Belgrade, where he will file the lawsuit against NATO, to side with truth, justice, and the law. Aleksić expects the court to order NATO, as an organisation with legal personality, funds, and assets, to compensate for damages. "NATO is obliged to compensate damages in the same way that Italy, as a member of that alliance, compensates Italian soldiers who developed cancer after serving in the KFOR mission in Kosovo and Metohija due to the effects of depleted uranium," Aleksić believes. Aleksić said that another ruling awarding compensation for damages caused by depleted uranium used in 1999 was recently delivered. "We obtained that first-instance ruling before the Basic Court in Vršac. It concerns a police officer living in the Vršac area who was in Kosovo and Metohija in 1999. In the meantime, he developed thyroid cancer," Aleksić said.