SERBIA: Serbia yesterday began the prosecution of six of its citizens for the notorious 1991 Vukovar massacre in a special trial seen as a litmus test of its ability to dispense justice for war crimes during Yugoslavia's break-up.
The six men have been charged with killing at least 192 prisoners of war in Vukovar, Croatia, as the town fell to Serbian forces early in the 1991 Croatian war of independence.
A deputy prosecutor, Mr Dusan Knezevic, said the six accused rounded up their victims from the hospital where they had sought shelter from a bombardment, put them on trailers and took them to pits where firing squads shot them seven or eight at a time.
"They killed more than 180 prisoners of war and covered up the pit where the bodies fell with a bulldozer. They later killed 10 more persons," Mr Knezevic said.
The first of the accused to appear, Mr Miroljub Vujovic, pleaded not guilty and called the charges "a fabrication".
His co-accused will plead over the next few days. The Belgrade trial focuses on the alleged trigger men, members of the "Vukovar territorial defence" aged from 32 to 55.
The wars caused by the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s created bitter hatreds.
In their immediate aftermath, the United Nations was unwilling to trust the former foes, Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia, with judging men who might be seen as war heroes at home.
Eight years later the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was appointed by the UN to hear trials on Yugoslavian war crimes, is increasingly focused on the "big fish" and ready to assist local courts to handle lower-level cases.