Sisak killings

Between 1991 and 1992, Croatian Serbs living in Sisak and surrounding areas were subjected to threats, abductions, killings and "disappearances". According to Amnesty International, as many as 21 Serb villagers were thought to have been killed on 22 August 1991 in several villages when "Croatian security forces undertook a house-to-house search for Serbian paramilitaries who had fired mortars at the town of Sisak". Another 12 were reported to have been killed in March 1992 some of whom were workers at the city's oil refinery.^[2] Victims were frequently tortured before being killed with instances of breaking of limbs, stabbings and even decapitations, as outlined by the findings of the Sisak General Hospital; the bodies of 64 victims have been exhumed.^[4]

Vladimir Milanković, wartime deputy police commander of the Sisak area, and Drago Bosnjak, a former member of the Sisak special police unit "Wolves" went on trial in 2012 for war crimes.^[3] In 2013, Milanković was convicted of ordering illegal arrests and not punishing crimes against Serb civilians such as illegal detentions, threats, and mental and physical abuses which resulted in the deaths of 24 people between mid-July 1991 and mid-June 1992.^[7] Bosnjak was acquitted.^[7]

In 2004, Amnesty International noted that "some of those who may have directly committed, ordered or tolerated [crimes in Sisak], or may have participated in their subsequent cover-up, remain in powerful positions at the local level of state institutions or in the police and are thus still in a position to undermine the investigation of these crimes."^[2]

Croatian human rights activists claim that over one hundred Croatian Serb civilians were killed in Sisak during the war.^[3]