Commenting on the Hague tribunal's latest ruling reducing the sentence against Yugoslav army officer Veselin Sljivancanin, Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said that it was difficult to hear about such a final ruling at a time when Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic were still beyond the reach of the tribunal.
"My thoughts are with the people of Vukovar, those who are still looking for their dearest ones, the families of war veterans and civilians who were killed, particularly those killed at Ovcara," Kosor said, adding that efforts should be made to ensure that those responsible for the crimes committed in Vukovar and at Ovcara were appropriately punished.
It is difficult to accept any fact that would say that Sljivancanin did not know something - he was a high-ranking officer, Kosor said after attending a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the restoration of the Croatian Heritage Foundation.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague on Wednesday altered the final judgement against Sljivancanin for war crimes committed on the Ovcara farm outside the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991, reducing his prison sentence from 17 to 10 years.
Having reviewed the final judgement, the ICTY Appeals Chamber accepted the defence argument that Sljivancanin had not known about the withdrawal of military policemen from Ovcara and was therefore not guilty of the murder of 194 Croatian prisoners of war on the farm in November 1991.
Judges, however, concluded that Sljivancanin was responsible for the torture of the POWs and sentenced him to 10 years' imprisonment.
