Podujevo massacre

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The Podujevo massacre is the name generally used to refer to the mass killing of 14 Kosovo Albanian civilians, all women and children, committed by Serbian forces in March 1999 during the Kosovo war. One of the survivors of this massacre, Saranda Bogujevci, who was only thirteen years old when it occurred received a lot of media attention after she successfully manage to bring to justice her case with the help of several organizations from Serbia, Canada and the United Kingdom.^[1]

Goran Stoparić, at the time of the events serving in the anti-terrorism unit of the Yugoslav army (SAJ) gave evidence to bring the culprits to justice. In an interview to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation he speculated over the motives behind the actions committed by the irregular forces:

"In my opinion, [their] only motive was the fact that the victims were Albanians, and perhaps because of some hidden immaturity or sickness of mind on their part. They would probably have killed them had they been Bosnians or Croats. But it is certain that they were killed because they were not Serbs."^[1]

Serbian police arrested two members of a special police unit called the Scorpions, Sasa Cvjetan and Dejan Demirović, who freely gave incriminating statements and signed them. Demirović, had moved to Canada and applied for political asylum but was deported back to his home country after a campaign orchestrated by human rights organizations.^[1]

Dejan Demirović and Sasa Cvjetan were the only two people charged with the killings. Cvetjan was sentenced in Serbia to 20 years in prison.^[2]

Members of Serbian Scorpions were also involved in other massacres in Bosnia-Herzegovina. On April 10 2007, four of them were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences by Belgrade's War Crimes Court.^[3]