URGENT TALKS WITH CROATIA REQUIRED OVER PROSECUTION OF KRAJINA VETERANS

BELGRADE, JUNE 14 /SRNA/ – Chair of the Association of Serbs from the Region, Miodrag Linta, has today called on Serbia’s Justice Minister Nenad Vujić to urgently initiate talks with Croatian Justice Minister Damir Habijan over the persecution of Krajina Serb veterans.

Linta referred to the arrest of Serb national Milovan Perić /aged 72/ on suspicion of a war crime in Croatia and said it represented a continuation of the long-standing and deliberate prosecution of Krajina veterans. “Serbia should clearly tell Croatia that it is unacceptable for Krajina veterans to be arrested on the basis of warrants without any concrete evidence and subjected to staged judicial proceedings,” Linta said. He believes the purpose of such arrests is to intimidate displaced Serbs and discourage them from returning to their hometowns, restoring their homes, and maintaining their property, as well as to justify a false narrative of the war in Croatia, as they call it the “Homeland War”, according to which Serbs are portrayed as aggressors and criminals, while Croats are presented as liberators and victims, the Association of Serbs from the Region announced. Linta stated that Serbia’s Ministry of Justice has an obligation to provide legal and financial assistance to Perić and all other Krajina veterans against whom, ethnically motivated and biased criminal proceedings are currently being conducted by the Croatian judiciary, whether they are free or imprisoned in Croatia. He said that Perić is originally from the village of Todić near Udbina and has lived in Serbia since fleeing with his family during the Operation Storm. “Since 2019, he had occasionally returned to his native area and began restoring his house and property. After seven years from his first return to Croatia, Croatian police arrested him at the Tovarnik border crossing on the basis of a warrant,” Linta said. According to him, it is clear that the rule of law is being seriously violated in Croatia because Serbs are being arrested without any concrete evidence that they committed war crimes. “Croatia organizes staged court proceedings based on assumptions and false testimony from cooperating witnesses,” Linta said. Serb national Milovan Perić from Valjevo was arrested at the Tovarnik border crossing while entering Croatia from Serbia on suspicion of a war crime, announced yesterday the Veritas Documentation and Information Centre.