Pelemis and Peric: Plea hearing postponed

Pelemis and Peric are indicted as “deliberate participants in a joint criminal enterprise” to commit genocide in Srebrenica in July 1995, acting together with other members of the Republika Srpska army and the Republika Srpska Ministry of Interior. They refused to enter a plea. It was said in the courtroom that their defence attorneys did not have sufficient time to study the evidence submitted to them by the state prosecution.

“We have received about 7,000 pages of material. At this moment it would be unprofessional and unserious for a defence attorney to advise his client to enter a plea,” said Miodrag Stojanovic, Peric’s Defence attorney. “I am afraid that the defence is now in a difficult situation.”

The preliminary hearing judge approved the defence team’s request and postponed the plea hearing until January 16, 2009.

The indictment alleges that Pelemis and Peric “planned, ordered and helped” others murder about 1,200 Srebrenica residents at a military farm in Branjevo, having allegedly first detained them in the “Kula” school building in Pilica, in Zvornik municipality. The two are also named in connection to the murder of about 600 men detained in Pilica House.

The State Prosecution said that at that time the murders were committed, on July 15 and 16, 1995, Pelemic was deputy commander and deputy chief of staff of the First Battalion of the Zvornik Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS), while Peric was assistant commander for security with the same Brigade.

The State Investigation and Protection Agency arrested the two men in early November 2008. They have been held in custody since then.