Week ahead: Second phase of Vitez crimes trial
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Next week, on November 17 and 20 the Defence is due to start presenting evidence before the War Crimes Chamber of the State Court in the trial of Ante Kovac, former commander of a brigade Military Police Squad with the Croatian Defence Council, HVO. Kovac is charged with crimes committed against civilians in Vitez Municipality.
The Prosecution charges Kovac with having participated in the detention of Bosniak civilians in the premises of Radnicki University, the cinema hall and the Public Accounting Services in Vitez in April and May 1993, as well as with having raped two protected witnesses.
On Tuesday, November 18 the Defence will continue presenting evidence at the trial of Predrag Kujundzic, who is accused of persecution, murder, rape and other forms of abuse of Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks in the Doboj area committed in the course of 1992 and 1993.
At the trial of Miodrag Nikacevic, due to continue on November 21, the Defence is expected to examine witness Nuradin Asceric, who refused to testify at previous hearings asking the Court to appoint a legal representative to assist him.
Nikacevic is charged, as a former policeman in Foca, with having raped two women in Foca in the course of 1992. The Prosecution also charges him with taking Rasim Klapuh to the Correctional Facility in Foca, where he was killed.
The Prosecution is due to examine new witnesses in the trial of Momir Savic, which is scheduled for November 20 and 21. The former commander of the Third Squad with the Visegrad Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, is charged with having participated in the interrogation, beating and murder of detained Bosniak civilians from Visegrad. He is also charged with having raped one person.
At the retrial of Kreso Lucic, on Friday, November 21 the Appellate Chamber will continue hearing witnesses’ statements given during the course of the first instance trial.
Lucic, former commander of the HVO Military Police, was sentenced, by a first instance verdict, to six years in prison for crimes committed against Bosniaks, who were held in detention camps in Kresevo Municipality in 1993.
