DRAKULIĆ: WE MUST NOT ALLOW TRIAL FOR "STORM" AND THE PETROVAC ROAD TO BE MINIMIZED

BELGRADE, MARCH 28 /SRNA/ - Croatia will do everything it can to minimize a trial of four Croatian military pilots in absentia for rocket attacks on refugee convoys on the Petrovac road on August 7 and 8 in the "Storm" operation, screenwriter Nataša Drakulić, who is attending the start of the trial in Belgrade, told SRNA.

"The fact that they have never revealed the names of pilots who bombed the refugee convoy speaks volumes. We must not allow it," said Drakulić, who was in a refugee convoy of Serbs on the Petrovac road in August 1995.

She emphasized that this crime must not be forgotten.

Drakulić says that every pilot, from that altitude, could have seen who was in the convoy: civilians, terrified people, and children, not a convoy of vehicles.

"Thirty years have passed, and new generations will not know much about this, but we should at least legally resolve it, so that the descendants of these pilots know what happened and feel ashamed," said Drakulić.

Drakulić says that she was 16 years old when she was part of the convoy that traveled this road two days earlier, and that she was afraid for her parents when she heard what had happened.

"At that time, my cousin was wounded, and I thought my father had been wounded. My cousin's name was Dušan Drakulić, he was driving a tractor, born in 1979, just like me. He passed away three years ago," said Drakulić, the screenwriter of the film "Dara of Jasenovac".

She reminded that she worked on the documentary film "Storm," in which many people were interviewed, emphasizing that it is heartbreaking that parents watched their children burn.

The trial of four Croatian military pilots accused of rocket attacks on Serbian refugee convoys during the criminal operation "Storm" on the Petrovac Road and in Svodna in August 1995 began today in Belgrade.

The accused are Croatian Air Force officers Vladimir Mikac /67/ from Ptuj, Zdenko Radulj /69/ from Osijek, Željko Jelenić /69/ from Pula, and Danijel Borović /64/ from Varaždin.

The Croatian officers, accused of ordering the bombing of refugee convoys from the Republic of Serbian Krajina on the Petrovac Road and in Svodna near Novi Grad, are being tried in absentia because they have not been available to Serbian judicial authorities since the start of the investigation in 2021.

The crime on the Petrovac Road was committed on August 7, 1995, when several civilians, including children aged six to thirteen, were killed in a bombing of a refugee convoy from an aircraft during the criminal operation "Storm."

The following day, on August 8, 1995, an airstrike targeted a refugee convoy in Svodna near Novi Grad, resulting in the deaths of three civilians.