Izvor: N1 televizija, 30.Okt.2018, 21:11 (ažurirano 02.Apr.2020.)
Belgrade court confirms verdict against Youth Initiative
The Belgrade Misdemeanour Appellant Court has confirmed the previous verdict against eight members of Youth Initiative charged with violating “the law on public peace and order” instructing each of them to pay 420 Euros in fines N1 reported on Tuesday.
The eight were accused of interrupting a debate organised by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) led by President Aleksandar Vucic, where a convicted war criminal, former Yugoslav Army officer Veselin Sljivancanin took >> Pročitaj celu vest na sajtu N1 televizija << part.
During his address, the group started whistling and unfold a banner reading “War criminals to shut up so that victims are talked about.”
Sljivancanin was indicted in 1995, by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The charges included "responsibility for the mass killing at Ovčara, near Vukovar in Croatia, of approximately 260 captive non-Serb men.”
In 2007, he was found guilty of "aiding and abetting the torture of the prisoners" and sentenced to five years in prison. He was found not guilty of crimes against humanity.
His prison sentence was changed twice, from five to seventeen to ten years.
The Initiative said in its statement that the court ignored “as irrelevant for this court and this verdict” the fact that some of their activists were beaten up during the incident.
"This verdict only confirmed the statements by the SNS officials Vucic and (Interior Minister) Nebojsa Stefanovic who immediately described the incident as the violation of public peace and order,” the statement said.
It added that the President, Interior Minister and a local official in the northern town of Beska where the debate took place, “have openly defended Sljivancanin and condemned the Youth Initiative, while the prosecutors and the court only followed suit.”
The Initiative’s activists said they would appeal to the Constitutional court and if that failed they said they would seek justice at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg.
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