  | You have information to share ?
Or mistakes to correct ?
click here...
|
|
| |  | | Milan Lukic | | | context : | Former Yugoslavia  | | judgement place : | ICTY (Yugoslavia) | | status : | On trial | | particulars : | Case referral to Bosnia and Herzegovina denied by the ICTY-Appeals Chamber on 12 July 2007; trial began on 9 July 2008 | | position : | Leader of the Bosnian Serb paramilitary group |
|
| | | | Milan Lucik was born 6 September 1967 in Foča, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He lived for a period of time in Germany, Switzerland and Obrenovac, Serbia.
Lukic returned to Visegrad in 1992 and is alleged to have formed a group of Bosnian Serb paramilitaries referred to as "White Eagles" and "Avengers," .The indictment states the group worked with local police and military units to spread terror among the local Muslim population.
Višegrad is a small town in south-eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, close to the Serbian border. It has a number of features which made it strategically important during the conflict, including the fact that the town is the site of an important hydroelectric dam and a vital road link to Serbia.
The indictment alleges that on 6 April 1992 units from the Yugoslav People’s Army (“JNA”) began bombarding the town and its environs with artillery. The bombardment predominantly affected Muslim neighbourhoods and villages. The indictment states that in retaliation, a small group of Bosnian Muslims took several Serbs hostage, seized control of the dam and threatened to blow it up. The crisis was diffused on 12 April 1992.
On 19 May 1992 the JNA officially withdrew from the town. Local Serb leaders then established the "Serbian Municipality of Višegrad" and took control of all municipal government offices. Soon thereafter, the indictment alleges that local Serbs, police and paramilitaries began one of the most notorious campaigns of ethnic cleansing in the conflict.
This was, according to the indictment, designed to permanently rid the town of its Bosnian Muslim population. Allegedly, a large number of unarmed Muslim civilians from Višegrad were killed because of their ethnicity. Many of the Muslim men, women and children who were killed around the town and on the historic Ottoman bridge crossing the River Drina were dumped into the river. Serbian forces were allegedly involved in systematically looting and destroying Muslim homes and villages. Both of Višegrad’s mosques were completely destroyed.
The indictment alleges that many of the Muslims who were not immediately killed were detained at various locations in the town, as well as the former JNA military barracks at Uzamnica, five kilometres outside of Višegrad. According to the indictment those detained in these barracks were kept in inhumane conditions, subjected to regular beatings and used for strenuous forced-labour projects.
Among other acts, Milan Lukic is alleged to have lead seven Bosnian Muslim men to a site on the bank of the River Drina, near Višegrad, forcing them to line up along the bank, and shooting and killing five of them. He is equally alleged to have entered the Varda sawmill and furniture factory in Višegrad, forcing seven Bosnian Muslim men to go to the bank of the River Drina, and shooting them repeatedly, killing all seven men.
On or around 7 June 1992, he allegedly shot and killed five Bosnian Muslim men on the bank of the River Drina. He is also accused of murdering approximately 70 Bosnian Muslim women, children and elderly men in a house on Pionirska Street in Višegrad by barricading the victims in one room of the house, setting the house on fire and then firing automatic weapons at those who tried to escape through the windows, killing some and injuring others. Lukic is thought to have murdered approximately 70 Bosnian Muslim women, children and elderly in a house in the village of Bikavac, near Višegrad, by forcing the victims into the house, barricading all the exits and throwing in several explosive devices.
Furthermore, Milan Lukic, together with Sredoje Lukic, was allegedly responsible for numerous rapes of Bosniak women they held prisoner at Visegrad’s infamous Vilina Vlas spa hotel, the headquarters of Milan Lukic’s paramilitary group. “Some of the worst crimes of sexual slavery were allegedly committed in Visegrad by the Lukic cousins, holding women for days and weeks and repeatedly raping them.
Lukic was arrested 5 August 2005 in Argentina, and transferred to the ICTY on 21 February 2006. | |     click for more... | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | nationality : | | | Bosnia and herzegovina | | | date of birth : | | | 06.09.1967 | | | last time seen : | | | The Hague, Netherlands | | | judgement period : | | | 09.07.2008 | | | charges : | | | Crimes against humanity
War crimes | | | profile last modified : | | | 09.08.2008 |
| |
| | |
|
|
