WEEK AHEAD: New Trial for Nedjo Samardzic

A new hearing of the case against Nedjo Samardzic will begin before the Appellate Council of the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of  Bosnia and Hezegovina. According to official information, the hearing should run for two weeks continuously, starting November 22.

At the beginning of October the Appellate Council decided that the verdict against Nedjo Samardzic should be reviewed, after both prosecution and defence appealed.  (see http://www.bim.ba/en/30/10/1043/)

In the first-instance verdict pronouced at the beginning of April of this year,Samardzic was sentenced to 13 years and four months imprisonment for crimes committed in the Foca area. (see http://www.bim.ba/en/33/10/1351/)

The Court found him guilty on four of ten counts listed in the indictment raised against him, namely of  committing crimes in the notorious Karaman house, where Bosniak women were kept and sexually abused,for rape of a twelve-year-old girl in that house, and rape of protected witnesses K and L who were 15 years old at the time.

He was also found guilty of having personally forced the detained women to have sexual relations with him, including a rape victim from Kalinovik, identified by the initials B J, of having abused the Softic and Grbo families from the village of  Rataje and of having forcefully detained Sucrija Softic in Foca prison.

The prosecution also accused Samardzic of forcefully transporting Bosniaks to the Partizan Hall in Foca, physical abuse and rape of at least five women and murder of 13 civilians in the Miljevina mine, but the Trial Chamber found it did not successfully prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that the indictee was guilty of these crimes.

After both sides appealed, the Appellate Council found that the “factual situation was not properly determined” during the procedure, calling therefore for a new hearing in which most witnesses will be questioned again, testimonies of some witnesses will be re-read and written documents will be reviewed.

The prosecution will present evidence in the case against Momcilo Mandic from Monday, November 20 to Friday, November 24.

Presentation of evidence began on November 13, with witnesses testifying in relation to the first two of four counts on the indictment. According to these charges, Mandic led an attack in April 1992 on the Centre for Staff Training of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of BiH, and, as justice minister for the former Srpska Republika BiH, was responsible for founding and managing detainment camps in that part of the country.

After the Trial Chamber and both parties in the case against Dragan Damjanovic visit on November 20 the former prison camp Planjina kuca and the house of Rajko Bunjevac, where civilians were held in 1992 and 1993, the prosecution will begin on Tuesday, November 21 to present material evidence in support of the charges.

The Court has questioned witnesses who confirmed parts of the indictment accusing Dragan Damjanovic with abusing detainees in camps formed in the Sarajevo municipality of Vogosca during 1992 and at the beginning of1993.

Some of these witnesses, called by the prosecution, testified about the murder of Zahid Barucija, with which Damjanovic is charged. The indictment also alleges he murdered married couple Hodzic in Svrakein July 1992.  Experts called by the prosecution stated, based on examination of their bodies, that they had suffered gunshot wounds.

The trial of Nikola Andrun, who is charged as deputy warden of the Gabela prison camp in Herzegovina with participating in the torture and murder of detained Bosniaks, will continue for three days from Monday, November 20.

The defence will call witnesses in an attempt to prove that Andrun did not torture camp inmates and did not hold the position of deputy warden, but was in fact an ordinary guard without any authority.

Next week,from November 22-24, the prosecution will continue presenting material evidence in the trial of 11 indictees charged with genocide against Bosniaks in the village Kravica, nearby Srebrenica.

According to the indictment, ten members of the Special Police and one soldier in the Army of Republika Srpska participated in the murder of around 1.000 Bosniaks in a storage shed in Kravica on July 13, 1995. The indictees are Milos Stupar, Milenko Trifunovic, Petar Mitrovic, Brane Djinic, Aleksandar Radovanovic, Slobodan Jakovljevic, Miladin Stevanovic, Velibor Maksimovic,Dragisa Zivanovic, Branislav Medan and Milovan Matic.