Skrobic: Verdict Appeal

At a session of the Appellate Chamber, the State Prosecution and Marko Skrobic’s Defence appealed the first-instance verdict by which Skrobic, a former member of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), was sentenced to ten years in prison for abusing civilians in the Kotor-Varos area.

The Prosecution called for a more severe sentence. The Defence called on the Appellate Chamber to amend or annul the first-instance verdict and order a retrial.

In October 2008, the first-instance verdict found that in the early hours of July 31, 1992 Skrobic, a member of the HVO in Kotor-Varos, along with other four soldiers, ordered the Glamocak family to leave their household and led them towards Ravne village. Two of the soldiers took Stojko Glamocak aside. The verdict found Skrobic guilty of killing Glamocak.

“We consider that the court could have issued a more severe first-instance sentence and not the mere minimum under the law. We also consider that they accepted mitigating circumstances too readily,” Prosecutor Dubravko Campara said.

The Defence complained about a violation of Criminal Procedure and the wrong application of the Criminal Code, as well as what it described as an “incomplete determination of the facts.”

The Defence did not argue that the incident had not taken place, but claimed that the Prosecution did not succeed in proving that the indictee committed the act. “The appeal refutes such a conclusion, and the reasons by which the Court arrived at such a decision,” the Defence attorney, Branka Praljak, said.

Praljak also made a comment in regard to statements given by several Prosecution witnesses. She argued that the first-instance Court had mistakenly accepted these statements as valid, and she said the Court did not consider the fact that at the time at least four people named Marko Skrobic lived in the area. The Appellate Chamber will reach a decision later.