Press Releases
Workshop in Vukovar for Croatian County State Attorneys on Investigating and Prosecuting War Crimes
EMBASSY OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Public Affairs Section
Zagreb, Croatia
Workshop in Vukovar for Croatian County State Attorneys on Investigating and Prosecuting War Crimes
On April 27 and 28, the United States Government funded a workshop in Vukovar for 20 Croatian County State Attorneys on investigating and prosecuting war crimes involving massacres. The workshop was organized by the American Bar Association's Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI) in cooperation with the Judicial Academy of the Croatian Ministry of Justice as part of a professional education program entitled "Improving the Capacity for the Adjudication of War Crimes in Croatia".
Croatian prosecutors developed a hypothetical massacre case study that served as the basis for practical analysis during the workshop. U.S. experts provided by the Department of Justice's Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) and their Croatian colleagues discussed a wide range of topics relevant to war crimes prosecutions; including forensic evidence recovered from mass graves, the use of DNA analysis, satellite imagery as evidence, and practical ballistics issues in reconstructing shooting incidents.