CASE OF NIKOLIĆ v. CROATIA
No violation of Article 2 - Right to life (Article 2-1 - Effective investigation) (Procedural aspect)
Dmitry Dedov;Elisabeth Steiner;Julia Laffranque;Khanlar Hajiyev;Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska;Ksenija Turković
5. The applicant was born in 1964 and lives in Vukovar. 6. The events at issue took place in Vukovar, a Croatian town near the Serbian border which was heavily attacked by the Yugoslav People’s Army and paramilitary Serbian armed forces during the armed conflict in Croatia from August to November 1991 and was finally occupied at the end of November 1991. Between 1992 and 1996 Vukovar was a part of the United Nations Protected Area (the “UNPA”). 7. In 1996 the United Nations Security Council established the United Nations Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (the “UNTAES”), which included Vukovar. On 15 January 1998 the UNTAES mandate ceased and the transfer of power to the Croatian authorities began. 8. Between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on 2 October 1991, during a general alert, two unknown uniformed men, armed with firearms, apprehended the applicant’s husband, Lj.N., in the basement or the courtyard of a building in Kudeljarska street in Vukovar, and drove him away. 9. On 24 November 1991, the body of Lj.N. was found in the River Danube at Novi Sad, Serbia. 10. On 25 November 1991 the Institute for Forensic Medicine of the Medical Faculty in Novi Sad carried out an autopsy on the body of Lj.N. which established that the cause of death was a gunshot wound caused by a bullet fired from a hand gun. 11. In 2004 the applicant brought a civil action before the Vukovar Municipal Court against the State, represented by the Vukovar Municipality State Attorney’s Office, seeking damages in connection with the death of her husband. 12. In connection with the above civil proceedings, the Vukovar Municipality State Attorney’s Office asked the Vukovar police to submit all information concerning the death of the applicant’s husband. The police thereby learned about the death of the applicant’s husband for the first time and opened an enquiry into it. 13. On 24 January 2005 the police interviewed the applicant, who stated that on 2 October 1991 her husband had been abducted from the basement of a building in Vukovar by two Croatian soldiers and driven away. She named six other persons who had been present in the basement on that occasion, B.Š., K.Š., J.T., S.P., M.P. and J.M. However, K.Š., S.P. and M.P. had died in the meantime. 14. On the same day the police interviewed J.T., who stated that the applicant’s husband had been taken from the basement of a building in Vukovar in October 1991 by two uniformed and armed men wearing masks. 15. On 3 February 2005 the police interviewed B.Š., who stated that he had joined the Croatian Army in August 1991 and had only been visiting his wife K.Š. and their children, who had sought shelter from the shelling of Vukovar in the same basement as the applicant and her husband. He said he had not been present when the applicant’s husband had been taken. 16. On 15 February 2005 the Vukovar police lodged a criminal complaint with the Vukovar County State Attorney’s Office against an unknown perpetrator in connection with the killing of the applicant’s husband, classifying the offence as a war crime against the civilian population. 17. On 5 May 2009 the applicant approached the Vukovar County State Attorney’s Office and told them that B.Š. had been present when her husband was taken. She also stated that after K.Š. had died around 10 November 1991, one of the men who had taken her husband had come to the basement to take J.M. On that occasion B.Š. ‒ who had also been present ‒ whispered to the applicant: ‘This is the man who took Lj.[N.]’. The applicant also stated that B.Š. lived in Zagreb. 18. On 9 July 2009 the Zagreb police interviewed B.Š. He said that he had not been present when the applicant’s husband had been taken and did not know the identity of those who had taken him. 19. On 21 July 2009 the Vukovar police interviewed J.M., who said that she had been present in the basement on the day Lj.N. had been taken but had not seen the men who had taken him. 20. On 24 March 2011 an investigating judge of the Zagreb County Court heard evidence from B.Š., who repeated his prior statement. 21. On 3 May 2011 an investigating judge of the Vukovar County Court interviewed the applicant, who repeated her statement. 22. On 12 November 2011 the Vukovar police informed the Vukovar County State Attorney’s Office that they had not learned any new information. 23. As indicated above (see paragraph 11) in November 2004 the applicant brought a civil action against the State in the Vukovar Municipal Court, seeking compensation in connection with the death of her husband. The claim was dismissed on 18 September 2008 and was upheld on appeal by the Vukovar County Court and the Supreme Court on 21 April 2009 and 16 February 2011 respectively. The national courts found that the claim had been submitted after the statutory limitation period had expired. 24. A subsequent constitutional complaint lodged by the applicant was dismissed on 12 July 2011.