War crimes

The trial of Slobodan Miloševic, accused of responsibility for war crimes committed in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, continued before the Tribunal. Witnesses testified that his government controlled Serb "paramilitaries" responsible for atrocities. In August former Vice-Admiral Miodrag Jokic pleaded guilty to war crimes in connection with events in Dubrovnik in Croatia in 1991, and in December the trial began of similarly accused former General Pavle Strugar.

A number of suspects were transferred to the Tribunal. Former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, who had enjoyed immunity while in office, voluntarily went before the Tribunal in January to face charges of crimes against humanity in Kosovo. Vojislav Šešelj, leader of the Serbian Radical Party, was indicted in February for crimes against humanity in connection with events in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Vojvodina, and flown to the Tribunal.

However, the Tribunal Prosecutor complained that in some cases official documents were not made available or those indicted remained at large in Serbia. In October, Serbian Deputy Interior Minister and former Kosovo police chief Sreten Lukic, former FRY army chief Nebojša Pavkovic and two other generals were indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo, but the Serbian authorities refused to transfer them.

In February the International Court of Justice in the Hague agreed to hear a case brought by Bosnia-Herzegovina against SCG for genocide and aggression in connection with the 1992-95 war.

Domestic war crimes trials

Of four domestic war crimes trials in 2003, three were completed in the year.

In September, Dragutin Dragicevic, a Bosnian Serb, and Ðjordje Sevic were sentenced to 20 and 15 years' imprisonment respectively for the abduction and murder in October 1992 of 17 Muslims, 16 of them taken from a bus in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Milan Lukic and Oliver Krsmanovic, also Bosnian Serbs, received 20-year sentences in absentia.
In October the Supreme Military Court sentenced Major Dragiša Petrovic and reservist Nenad Stamenkovic to nine and seven years' imprisonment respectively for killing an elderly Albanian couple in Kosovo in 1999.
Exhumations and returns

In June and July, 65 bodies previously found in a mass grave in Serbia were returned to Kosovo. This brought to 110 the total repatriated out of about 850 bodies of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo exhumed from mass graves in Serbia. No suspects were indicted.

Kosovo (Kosova)
War crimes

Arrests and trials continued of ethnic Albanians accused of war crimes.

In January the Tribunal secretly indicted four former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members including Fatmir Limaj, a senior aide to leading Kosovo politician Hashim Thaci. The indictment was for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war in connection with the murder and torture in 1998 of Serbs and of Kosovo Albanians perceived as Serb collaborators. It was made public after three of the accused were arrested in February and transferred to the Hague.
In July former KLA commander Rustem Mustafa and three others were convicted in Priština (Prishtinë) of war crimes connected with the illegal confinement, torture and murder of suspected ethnic Albanian "collaborators". They received sentences of up to 17 years' imprisonment.
The arrests, transferrals and trials provoked mass protests by tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians, who regarded the detainees as "freedom fighters", and attacks on UNMIK vehicles and property.

Trials and retrials continued of Serbs previously convicted of war crimes or genocide by panels with a majority of ethnic Albanian judges.