Gordan Lederer

Gordan Lederer (21 April 1958 – 9 August 1991) was a Croatian photographer and Croatian Radiotelevision cameraman killed during the Croatian War of Independence.

Biography Lederer was born in Zagreb on 21 April 1958. His mother, Vlasta Lederer, was physician at the Zagreb hospital "Sveti Duh". After elementary and high school in Zagreb, he graduated photojournalism at the Yugoslav Journalism Institute in Belgrade. From 1983, Lederer studied film and television recording at the Academy of Dramatic Art, University of Zagreb from where he graduated in 1989.

In 1986, Lederer started studying archeology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and in 1989 he began postgraduate education at Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik. During his studies, with colleague Mojmír Konič, he produced 35 mm animated film Muybridge and comp. The film earned the International Animated Film Association Award for Best Film at the 33rd Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film Festival in Belgrade.

Death From the very beginning of the war in Croatia, Lederer filmed on all Croatian crisis spots as a cameraman for Croatian Radiotelevision. He filmed in Knin, Pakrac, Borovo Selo, Vukovar and Banovina.

On 9 August 1991, while filming Croatian soldiers in action in Banovina, he was struck by a sniper bullet fired from Rosulja near Hrvatska Kostajnica by a Serb sniper, Milan Zorić. His camera recorded the whole event.

As his body fell down the slope, he was hit by a Mortar shell whose shrapnel also wounded him.

After her son's death, Lederer's mother. Vlasta, wrote a letter published in the Croatian daily newspaper Vjesnik on 14 August 1991:

In 1999, Milan Zorić was convicted in absentia at the County Court in Sisak for the murder of Lederer. On 18 September 2002, Zorić appealed at the Supreme Court of Croatia. The Supreme Court dismissed the charges against Zorić and the military court in Zagreb terminated the criminal proceedings following the application of the 1996 Amnesty Law.