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Victims’ familes pay a homage in front of the RTS I Photo by Beta

On 23 April 1999, at 2.06 am, NATO forces bombed the Serbian public broadcaster, RTS, which was viewed by the western powers as Milosevic’s main tool of state propaganda.

Out of the 150 people who were in the building at the time of the attack, 16 were killed.

Jelica Munitlak, Ksenija Bankovic, Darko Stojmenovski, Nebojsa Stojanovic, Dragorad Dragojevic, Dragan Tasic, Aleksandar Deletic, Slavisa Stevanovic, Sinisa Medic, Ivan Stukalo, Dejan Markovic, Milan Joksimovic, Branislav Jovanovic, Milan Jankovic, Tomislav Mitrovic and Slobodan Jontic were all victims of the RTS bombing.

A Serbian Court sentenced the former director of RTS, Dragoljub Milanovic, in 2002, for not responding to the orders of the federal government to evacuate the employees from the building.

The families of the victims, however, believe that that high level officials within the Serbian government and army knew that the bombing would take place, and that they left the workers within the building on purpose in order to claim that NATO was targeting civilians.

Bombed RTS building I Photo by Beta

Zanka Stojanovic, the mother of one of the victims, says that there are transcripts that show that authorities knew in advance that NATO would bomb the RTS building and that the army bears the responsibility.

“Our children were victims of a double murder – one carried out by NATO, and the other by the state. For the past 8 years we have been asking the prosecution to start a new investigation. We provided them with evidence that shows that the state was involved in the RTS bombing case, but no progress has been made so far, “ she explained.

Families of the victims, together with two NGOs, the Centre for Euro-Atlantic studies and the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, YUKOM, said that they have asked the Ministry of Defence to see the transcripts several times on the basis of the Law on Freedom of Information, but that they have never received a response from the authorities.

The Serbian Minister of Defence, Dragan Sutanovac, has previously claimed that no such documents exist within the Ministry. He suggested instead that they could be held at NATO headquarters, and has requested help from the European Parliament rapporteur, Jelko Kacin in retrieving these documents.

Kacin responded, however, by saying that the missing documents are in the archives of the Serbian Ministry of Defence, adding that a serious investigation should be carried out in the RTS case.

The Serbian Association of Journalists has asked their colleagues in the NATO member countries to push for an investigation by their own governments into this “war crime”.

They have also stated that they expect the Serbian State Prosecution to finally determine who was responsible for the crime.