PERIĆ: SRPSKA AND SERBIA SHOULD PROSECUTE ALL CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST SERBS

BANJA LUKA, JULY 21 /SRNA/ – Banja Luka lawyer Slobodan Perić believes that Republika Srpska and Serbia should prosecute all war crimes committed against Serbs in the territory of the former Yugoslavia so that a record remains showing that these crimes were committed against the Serb people.

"It does not matter how these proceedings end, but it is important that they are prosecuted and that an eternal record remains that these were war crimes committed against Serbs," Perić told SRNA. Perić, who lived in Croatia before the war, pointed out that the most severe consequence of the failure to prosecute Croats and Bosniaks for war crimes against Serbs is that Serbs have not returned to Croatia and the Federation of BiH. "In 2012, the Appeals Chamber of the Hague Tribunal acquitted Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač, who were initially sentenced to 24 and 18 years in prison for war crimes against Serbs during and after Operation Storm in 1995, and that meant that Serbs could never return to Croatia," Perić emphasized. According to him, if the Croatian generals had been convicted, it would have been a signal to the expelled Serbs to return to Croatia. "The Hague Tribunal said that crimes against Serbs are allowed," stressed Perić, who was a minister in the government of the Republic of Srpska Krajina. Speaking about the trial of Croatian pilots before the Serbian judiciary for crimes against Serb civilians on the Petrovačka road in 1995, Perić said he expects a conviction in this case. "The most positive thing is that court proceedings have started in this case and that there will be as many such trials as possible, regardless of the fact that the court proceedings are conducted in the absence of the accused Croatian pilots," said Perić. If Serbia were to convict them, Croatia would not extradite them, but Perić believes that any other country would extradite them if they were in countries that are members of Interpol. Perić, who passed along this road with a friend the day after the bombing of the refugee convoy from Krajina on the Petrovačka road, testifies that he then saw thick smoke and burning vehicles. "Among the injured Serbs in the refugee convoy were also relatives of my wife, the Beslać family from Donji Lapac, two little girls, their father and mother. The father was seriously injured and died two years ago, while the mother and girls were lightly wounded," Perić stated. Perić recounted that he still remembers the story of one of the girls, who was two and a half years old at the time, and who described being wounded by shrapnel saying: "The plane is coming and, suddenly, the plane bites." He reminded that Veritas has been commemorating the suffering of Serbs on the Petrovačka road for 30 years and that this organization financed and erected a memorial cross at the site of the Krajina Serbs’ suffering from its own funds.