Mirko Todorovic On the Run

Mirko Todorovic, who was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment for participation in crimes against humanity committed in Bratunac, failed to respond to a call to begin serving his sentence. Consequently the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has issued an order requesting a warrant for his arrest.

Todorovic and Milos Radic were found guilty of participating in the capture of a group of 14 Bosniak civilians in Borkovac village on May 20, 1992 and taking them away to be shot. Six detainees survived the shooting.

By the first-instance verdict each was sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment. The Appellate Chamber reduced the sentence by four years in Todorovic’s case and by five years in Radic’s case.

Todorovic and Radic, who had been detained since May 2007, were released on January 30, 2009. No prohibiting measures were ordered against them.

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina was forced to “act on the law” and terminate their custody, because the Appellate Chamber failed to render a decision concerning the appeals within nine months. As stipulated by the Law on Criminal Proceedings, which was in force at the time, an indictee could be kept in custody for a maximum of nine months after the pronouncement of the first-instance verdict.

Todorovic was released despite the fact that, prior to the pronouncement of the second-instance verdict, at his own request he had been sent to the Penal and Correctional Facility in Foca to serve his sentence in September 2008.

Rendering the second-instance verdict on February 17, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina also issued an order sending him to prison. Two months passed before the Court was informed, on April 2, that the summons was never handed to Todorovic.

“After that, the State Court asked the police station in Bratunac to undertake additional checks and try to locate the convict. In the meantime the Basic Court in Srebrenica submitted a written note claiming that the person was not found at his place of residence,” the State Court said.

The State Court did not want to comment on whether there were any indications on Todorovic’s possible whereabouts or whether an international warrant will be issued against him.

Todorovic’s personal data, as written in the court files, indicate that he has Bosnian citizenship only.

Attorney Ziko Krunic, who represented him during the trial, and the victims of the crimes for which he was sentenced told Justice Report that they did not know anything about Todorovic’s flight.

“I heard about it in the media. Those are some political games, coming from the top. I think I came there a few times and testified in vain. Not just me, but also other people who went there and worried about it,” said Naser Sulejmanovic, one of the survivors of the 1992 shooting.

Sulejmanovic appeared as a witness at the trial, identifying Todorovic as one of the perpetrators of the crime.

“On May 20 that year we heard shooting and someone yelling: ‘Drop your weapons. Surrender. You Muslims are surrounded!’. I saw three or four armed men. I recognized Mirko Todorovic. He was the first one I saw (…) Then they told us to stand by the brook. An unknown soldier said: ‘Pray to God’. The shooting started. I fell down into the brook,” Sulejmanovic said in October 2007, testifying as a Prosecution witness.

Sulejmanovic is not optimistic when it comes to Todorovic’s eventual arrest, suggesting that he could be arrested “in 10 or 15 years maybe”.

Besides Todorovic and Radic, 21 war-crimes indictees are at liberty awaiting second-instance verdicts to be pronounced by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Eleven have been sentenced while the others have been acquitted of the charges by first-instance verdicts.