Retired Yugoslav Peoples' Army (JNA) major, Veselin Sljivancanin, convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison for his involvement in the Ovčara massacre outside Vukovar following the fall of the city to JNA and Serb rebels in mid-November 1991, will be transferred during 2010 to Slovakia to serve his term in the Leopoldov penitentiary, the Belgrade media reported on Saturday
According to the media, Slovakia was selected thanks to its "cultural and linguistic closeness" to the convict, and Slovakia is ready to receive this war criminal convicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The ICTY trial chamber sentenced Sljivancanin for having killed the Croatian soldiers and civilians at Ovcara where they were brought from the Vukovar hospital to five years in prison, however, the appeals chamber ruled 17 years' imprisonment for the murder of 200 victims at Ovcara on 20 November 1991. The other convict in the case labelled as the "Vukovar Troika", JNA officer Mile Mrksic was given 20 years. The third defendant from the case, Miroslav Radic, also a JNA member, was acquitted.
