A Serb former paramilitary commander went on trial in Croatia on Tuesday, accused of torturing and killing soldiers and civilians during the 1991-95 independence war.
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He is also charged of torturing, abusing and killing captured members of Croatia’s police and army during June and July 1991 in the Knin fortress prison, and in February 1993 in Bruska near Benkovac. The proceedings opened with the reading of the indictment before Vasiljkovic entered his plea. I am a defender of my homeland of Yugoslavia, which I really liked.
He has been in custody since he was extradited from Australia in July last year after fighting a 10-year legal battle against being handed over to the Croatian judiciary.
Then in 2006, it issued a demand for his extradition from Australia, where he was living under the name Daniel Snedden and working as a golf instructon.
It sees uninvestigated crimes from the wars, in which some 130,000 died, as a major obstacle to this process.
There, his subordinates killed and tortured captives by “beating them with hands, feet and ox tendons. pushing guns in their mouths”, the indictment said.
As a commander he did “nothing to prevent and punish such crimes” and personally took part in them, it said.
He served in the Australian Army Reserve before setting off to sail the world and returning to Serbia during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
He is also accused of being responsible for the 1991 attack on a police station in the town of Glina in which civilians, including a foreign journalist, were expelled, robbed and killed.
Vasiljkovic allegedly ordered shooting at civilian targets from “tanks, mortars, armoured vehicles, snipers” as well as the tank shelling of a church and a school in a nearby village. More than 50 witnesses are expected to be questioned.
The former fighter, who has dual Serbian and Australian citizenship, told the court in the Adriatic city of Split that he “feels absolutely no guilt”.
But the suspect’s lawyers filed a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Council against Australia and Croatia over both the “illegality” of their client’s extradition and his 10-year detention.
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Vasiljkovic insisted that there was no evidence against him, claiming that all 55 prosecution witnesses were “false witnesses”.
