Croatia indicts former Serbian officer cleared by Hague tribunal

Croatian prosecutors on Tuesday indicted a former Serb army officer recently cleared of war crimes charges by a U.N. tribunal.
Miroslav Radic, 45, is accused of committing war crimes against Croat civilians and POWs during the 1991 war in Croatia.
In September, he was acquitted of related charges by the U.N. war
crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, and has since returned to Belgrade.
Radic was an officer in the Yugoslav army, which backed the Croatian Serbs who rebelled against Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia in 1991.
In Tuesday's indictment, Radic was accused of giving orders to commit war crimes in November 1991, as Serb paramilitaries and the Yugoslav army seized the town of Vukovar following a three-month siege.
Prosecutors said the indictment followed new witness testimony.
The indictment was issued by the prosecutor's office in Osijek in eastern Croatia. It also charges that Radic shot a Croat prisoner of war in the head in front of children.
The office said an international arrest warrant had been issued for Radic.
Serbia does not extradite its citizens to stand trial abroad. Croatian authorities could request his trial in Serbia or try him in absentia.

The Hague tribunal cleared Radic of involvement in the massacre of nearly 200 Croats forced out of the Vukovar hospital when the town fell.
Radic's acquittal infuriated Croatians, many of whom view the fall of Vukovar as a symbol of Serb wartime cruelty.
The Croatian government subsequently protested to the U.N., requesting that the work of its tribunal be re-examined.