CRIME AGAINST SERBS IN CAPRAG VILLAGES REMAINS UNPUNISHED FOR 35 YEARS

BELGRADE, AUGUST 21 /SRNA/ - The killing of 15 civilians, one of the most serious crimes against Serbs in the Sisak area, has remained unpunished for 35 years, although the victims' families filed lawsuits with Croatian courts, while some of the proceedings were also brought before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Veritas Documentation and Information Centre announced.

The criminal operation carried out by members of the Croatian police and the National Guard Corps /ZNG/ took place on August 22, 1991, when Croatian forces, using armoured personnel carriers bearing JNA markings, raided seven villages in the Caprag area and, firing indiscriminately, killed 15 Serb civilians and wounded dozens more. During the bloody campaign against the Serb-populated villages of Blinjski Kut, Kinjačka, Čakale, Blinjska Greda, Bestrma and Trnjani on August 21, 1991, Croatian units were stopped by residents of the village of Brđani, who, having heard the gunfire, quickly organised themselves and successfully set up an ambush. The youngest victim was 23-year-old Željka Boinović, who was shot through a window while in a room in Trnjani, at the home of her grandfather Miloš Vranešević. All of those killed, except for her, were married and left behind 32 children. Following the attack, the Serbs no longer went to work in Sisak and organised the defence of their villages and homes. They soon established a municipality which they named Caprag, after the area where these villages are located. The municipality, with its seat in Gradusa, was part of Republika Srpska Krajina. A criminal complaint filed by the families of those killed against four members of the ZNG for the war crime of killing civilians was dismissed by the Sisak County Prosecutor's Office in September 2006. The explanation was that their relatives had "been killed in an armed conflict between paramilitary groups of the so-called SAO Krajina and the Croatian Army, or were collateral victims of that armed conflict". Croatian courts rejected the families' claims for compensation on the grounds that the claims were time-barred and that there was insufficient evidence of the involvement of members of the Croatian Army. The families were also ordered to reimburse the state for legal costs, amounting in some cases to several thousand Euros. Some of those proceedings reached the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which dismissed them because the six-month deadline had expired between "the last investigative action or their becoming aware of the ineffectiveness of the investigation at the national level" and the submission of the applications to the court. According to Veritas data, at least 119 people of Serb ethnicity were killed in Sisak and the surrounding area during the summer and autumn of 1991. Among them were 97 civilians, including 11 women.