The crime in question was committed in Poljana, a village located 25 kilometres by road from Pakrac towards Kutina. In 1991, under the administrative structure at the time, the village belonged to Pakrac, while today it is part of the municipality of Lipik. The settlement is more widely known by the name Pakra\u010dka Poljana, which roughly corresponds to its location, and likely also because the official name of the village until 1981 was Poljana Pakra\u010dka. In 1991, it had a population of 669, the majority of whom were Croats (60.69%), with a significant number of Czechs (22.27%). There were 27 inhabitants of Serb nationality. Today, Poljana has 547 residents. Data on the current ethnic composition of the population is not available for settlements that do not have the status of a municipality or town.<\/p>\n
Period:<\/span><\/strong> From October 8 to mid-December 1991<\/p>\n Description of crimes:<\/span><\/strong> In the autumn of 1991, a reserve unit of the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) of the Republic of Croatia was stationed in Pakra\u010dka Poljana. During the specified period, members of this unit brought unlawfully detained Serbian civilians, as well as a small number of Croats, to the local Community Centre, which had been turned into an improvised prison. There, they were interrogated, frequently beaten and tortured, and many were killed. People were most often taken from their homes and were routinely asked for and stripped of money and valuables, including cars; on one occasion even a vacuum cleaner and an iron were taken. Some prisoners were tortured with electric shocks, had salt poured into their wounds or vinegar applied to them, they were struck with blunt objects, knives were used, several women were raped, and detainees were forced to raise their hands in a salute accompanied by the phrase \u201cFor Homeland \u2014 ready!\u201d when their torturers entered. They were subjected to numerous other forms of abuse. However, this brief description of torture accounts for only part of the crime, as dozens of people were killed by firearms or beatings in the area of Pakra\u010dka Poljana. Serbian civilians were most commonly brought to the camp from villages in the areas of Pakrac, Kutina, and Daruvar, although at least three were brought from Zagreb, where the same unit was also stationed at the Velesajam exhibition grounds. Victims were most often executed at close range with gunshots to the head, and then buried in shallow graves, mostly in the vicinity of Poljana.<\/span><\/p>\n Victims:<\/strong><\/p>\n Judicial consequences:<\/strong> In a judgment by the County Court in Zagreb in September 2005, a total of 30 years of imprisonment was handed down for proven cases of unlawful imprisonment, torture, looting and murder. Munib Sulji\u0107, as the first accused, was sentenced to ten years; Sini\u0161a Rimac received eight years; Igor Mikola, five years; Miroslav Bajramovi\u0107, four years; and Branko \u0160ari\u0107, three years. In May 2006, the Supreme Court increased Sulji\u0107’s sentence to 12 years. Igor Mikola had been in hiding since the first-instance verdict was delivered and was only arrested in July 2014 in Peru, where he awaits extradition to Croatia. Tomislav Mer\u010dep, as the (informal) commander of this group, was arrested in December 2010. An indictment against him was filed six months later, in June 2011, before the County Court in Zagreb, charging him on the basis of command responsibility for crimes committed in Pakra\u010dka Poljana, as well as, on the same grounds, for the murder of the Zec family. In July 2015, the County State Attorney’s Office in Zagreb amended the factual and legal description in the indictment against Mer\u010dep. Instead of charging him with command responsibility, he was now accused of failing to prevent members of the unit from committing war crimes against civilians. Compared to the first indictment, which held him personally responsible as commander for the arrest of 52 individuals, and the torture and murder of a total of 43, the new indictment limited the charges to his failure to act to prevent subordinates from committing war crimes against civilians. The Zagreb County State Attorney’s Office explained the change by stating that \u201cthe legal qualification of the criminal offence remained the same, and the defendant is still charged with the same criminal offence \u2014 a war crime against the civilian population under Article 120 of the Basic Criminal Code of the Republic of Croatia (BCC RH), in conjunction with Article 28 of the same Code.\u201d However, it continued, since \u201cthe factual description of the offence has been aligned with the facts established during the hearing, the accused T.M. is now charged, as the de facto commander of the Ministry of the Interior’s reserve unit, with failing to prevent members of the unit from committing war crimes against the civilian population.\u201d More than 20 years had passed between the commission of the crimes and the beginning of the trial. The first-instance proceedings were ongoing. On 1 December 2015, the trial began anew due to the opinion of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia that all criminal proceedings should be conducted under the provisions of the new Criminal Procedure Act. During the hearing, the case file was reviewed, along with a large amount of documentary evidence and the testimonies of 150 witnesses; two witnesses, Jordan Atanasoski and Igor Mikola, were heard in court. On 12 May 2016, the Zagreb County Court delivered its judgment against Tomislav Mer\u010dep, finding him guilty of the criminal offence of a war crime against the civilian population (Art. 120 BCC RH in conjunction with Art. 28) and sentencing him to five years and six months of imprisonment. The Supreme Court later increased the sentence to seven years. Nearly a quarter of a century after the unlawful arrests of Pero Raj\u010devi\u0107 and \u0110or\u0111e Gunjevi\u0107 (11 October 1991), the survivors saw their suffering acknowledged. Had Mer\u010dep, as the effective commander of the unit, acted upon their arrests, the subsequent crimes against those detained, tortured and killed might never have occurred. The crimes might also have been prevented if the police, who were informed shortly after the abductions, had acted in time. The judgment provides belated recognition to the families of those killed in Pakra\u010dka Poljana and Zagreb; it includes the murder of the Zec family in December 1991 but, regrettably, omits 25 victims who remain unidentified. Under the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act, Tomislav Mer\u010dep was ordered into investigative custody. He was convicted, pending final judgment, for failing, as the actual commander of a reserve unit of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia stationed in Pakra\u010dka Poljana and at the Zagreb Velesajam exhibition grounds, and as an advisor to the Ministry from October to December 1991, to prevent his subordinates from unlawfully arresting and abusing a total of 31 civilians brought from Zagreb, Kutina, Ribnjak, Janja Lipa, Bujavica, Me\u0111uri\u0107, Zbjegova\u010da, and Pakra\u010dka Poljana, of whom 23 were killed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-1476","zlocini","type-zlocini","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
\ndate of death: 8 December 1991 \/ 10 December 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 19 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 31 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 10 October 1991, the search for mortal remains is still ongoing<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 8 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 20 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 13 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 18 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 28 November 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 21 November 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 1 November 1991 \/ 28 November 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 1 October 1991 \/ 1 November 1991, circumstances of death not confirmed<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 28 November 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 28 November 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 19 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 29 October 1991 \/ 1 December 1991, the search for mortal remains is still ongoing<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 11 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 1 November 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 16 September 1991 \/ 16 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 13 October 1991 \/ 19 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 20 October 1991<\/li>\n
\ndate of death: 18 October 1991<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n