25 November 2002
ZAGREB, Croatia--Prosecutor Michele Squiccimarro said he will appeal to the Supreme Court after a panel of Split County Court judges on 22 November unanimously acquitted all eight defendants in a long-running war crimes case.

The defendants, all former members of the 72nd Military Police Battalion at the Lora military prison in Split, were charged with violations of the Geneva Convention as well as detaining and torturing persons, mostly Serbs living in Croatia, and of killing two prisoners. The crimes occurred in 1992 during the war between Croatia and Serbia. Seven of the accused pleaded not guilty; the eighth, Tomislav Dujic, was tried in absentia.

The case has been beset by allegations of partisanship and witness tampering since well before the trial got under way in June. On 22 July the judicial panel, headed by Slavko Lozina, allowed the defendants to leave prison, but the decision was quickly reversed on appeal by the Supreme Court. Two defendants did not return to custody and have not been seen since. Some local media and groups such as Amnesty International have accused Judge Lozina of favoring the defendants.

Lozina said the judges had reached their decision to acquit because “nothing at the trial proved that the defendants were guilty.” During the last phase of the trial, Squiccimarro said it was “useless to deliver a closing argument because the trial chamber has already decided on an acquittal." Squiccimarro also said that some witnesses had received threats that made them change or “forget” their initial statements.

A number of active and former Croatian military and intelligence personnel testified that the defendants performed their duties conscientiously and responsibly at the prison, and denied any knowledge of torture there. These witnesses all testified that the only instances of killings at Lora involved prisoners trying to escape, and some of them said members of enemy intelligence services were detained at Lora.

Intelligence officers also testified that the two prisoners named in the charge were killed while trying to escape from prison.

The prosecution’s case was weakened when 14 witnesses now living in Serbia and Montenegro failed to appear, although some had said they were willing to testify. None was offered protection by Croatian authorities.

A key prosecution witness, former military policeman Mario Barisic, said the eight accused were “paper tigers” masking the involvement of their superiors, including former Defense Minister Gojko Susak and his deputy Josip Perkovic. Barisic described prisoners being tortured and abused in the prison and charged that military police commanders and intelligence officers in Split knew of the torture at Lora and even tortured prisoners personally.

In closing arguments, Zeljko Olujic, the attorney representing Tomislav Dujic, who has been on the run since the investigation began, said the proceedings had only begun because of public pressure on the court to find the accused guilty. Other defense attorneys argued that their clients could not have committed war crimes, because such an offense can only occur when the victim is of different nationality from the perpetrator, whereas none of the prisoners at Lora was a foreign citizen.

Reactions to the acquittal ranged from outrage to satisfaction. A columnist for the Rijeka daily Novi list, Jelena Lovric, wrote that “the acquittal is shocking and scandalous, but not surprising.” During the trial Lozina allowed the defense to portray its clients as national heroes and to intimidate prosecution witnesses, she wrote.

Milorad Pupovac, president of the Serbian National Council, told Novi list that the court’s decision was a heavy blow not only to the justice system, but to Croatian politics. A member of parliament for the ruling Social Democratic Party, Pavle Kalinic, stated that the acquittal only showed how pathetic the Croatian justice system is. Zeljko Glavan of the opposition Croatian Social Liberal Party said he was satisfied with the acquittal, because the trial showed that no crimes were committed at Lora.

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