Jankovic hearing closed to public
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The prosecution has started to present its evidence against Gojko Jankovic, based on the additional indictment confirmed at the Bosnian court on July 4 of this year.
The additional indictment charges Jankovic that from April 7 to beginning of May 1992, he and two other persons raped or assisted in raping protected witness E on multiple occasions. It also alleges that they detained her and took her to sports hall Partizan, which served as a collective prison.
The trial chamber agreed in mid July that the additional indictment be added to the original, which charges him with the rape of women and young girls as well as torture and murders of civilians on the territory of municipality Foca. At the beginning of August, the prosecution completed presenting witnesses whose testimonies addressed the original indictment.
Prosecutor Philip Alcock asked that two witnesses – who will speak of the statements in the additional indictment – be questioned in a hearing closed to the public. The reason for this request was not disclosed. The trial chamber approved this request and approved the indictee’s removal from the courtroom during the testimony of these witnesses.
As trial chairperson Zorica Gogala explained, the indictee can hear the testimony and ask questions, but he cannot see the witnesses.
After he was read the text of the additional indictment in the courtroom, Jankovic said that, in his opinion, the charges have been fabricated. He objected to the chamber’s decision to remove him from the courtroom and to exclude the public.
While reading the charges in the additional indictment, which consists of only one count, the prosecutor commented that the facts in it present Jankovic as a “persistent and brutal rapist and an influential person who was powerful enough to place all his victims in the Partizan hall”.
Following a decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on December 12, 2005, Jankovic was transferred from the detention unit in The Hague to a detention unit in Sarajevo. The Hague indictment was filed in 1999.
