Ex-Serb soldier admits to executing 200 Croatian POWs in Vukovar massacre News
Ex-Serb soldier admits to executing 200 Croatian POWs in Vukovar massacre

[JURIST] A former Serbian soldier admitted in a special high-security court in Belgrade on Tuesday that he participated in the November 1991 execution of about 200 Croatian prisoners of war [BBC backgrounder] at a pig farm. The testimony by Ivan Atansijevic was the first admission by one of the 16 defendants who are being tried [JURIST report] for the execution of POWs captured in a successful Serbian assault on the eastern Croat town of Vukovar during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Three alleged leaders of the massacre are being tried [JURIST report] by the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [official website], which tries top civilian and military leaders, while the special court in Belgrade is dealing with the 16 other lower-level suspects. The Belgrade trial is seen as a key test of the ability of Serbia's post-Milosevic judiciary system to deal with war crimes cases committed by Serbs during the Yugoslavian civil war. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

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