Croatia Massacre Convict Asks Serbian Court for Parole
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| The site of the massacre at Ovcara Farm in Croatia. Photo: Perun/Wikipedia. |
Belgrade’s Higher Court on Monday heard a plea for parole filed by ex-fighter Petar Ciric, who was convicted of involvement in killing at least 200 Croats at Ovcara Farm near Vukovar in Croatia after the town fell to Serbian troops in 1991.
“[Ciric] wrote in his plea that he has fulfilled the formal condition for parole, having served two-thirds of his sentence,” presiding judge Vera Vukotic said at the hearing.
Ciric was sentenced in 2014 to 15 years in prison, but the verdict amalgamated his war crime sentence with a separate sentence for rape, which Ciric had already been serving since 2005. Therefore his 15-year sentence is actually set to expire in 2020.
The Serbian war crimes prosecutor’s office said that Ciric should serve the remaining two years and 10 months of his sentence.
“He is a repeat offender who was sentenced a total of seven times,” said a representative of the prosecution, Dusan Knezevic.
The court will announce its ruling on Ciric’s plea at a later date.
The massacre at Ovcara farm followed the fall of the town of Vukovar in eastern Croatia to the Yugoslav People’s Army and Serbian paramilitaries at the end of 1991.
Ciric was found guilty of beating Croatian prisoners and taking part in shooting them at Ovcara and near the village of Grabovo.
In January this year, a Serbian court also jailed eight former members of the Serb Territorial Defence in Vukovar for a total of 101 years for the massacre of around 200 people at Ovcara.
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