Savic: 18-Year Sentence

The Trial Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found Momir Savic guilty on all counts of the indictment which charges him with crime against humanity committed in Visegrad, and sentenced him with a first-instance verdict to 18 years of imprisonment.

The defendant, who has been on parole with restrictive measures since December 2008, did not attend the announcement of the verdict. The Trial Chamber was informed that Savic’s car “broke down near Rogatica”, and that he reported in the morning at five to the police station in Visegrad when he “set off for Sarajevo”.

Visegrad is 117 kilometres from Sarajevo, where the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina is located.

The Trial Chamber said it had dismissed a proposal by the Prosecution that the defendant be remanded in custody, deciding to leave the restrictive measures in place.

“At this point, it is not necessary to remand him in custody in order to ensure his presence. These restrictive measures have turned out to be adequate so far,” said Saban Maksumic, presiding judge of the Trial Chamber.

Momir Savic was sentenced for participating in arrests, expulsions, harassments and murders of civilians from the territory of Visegrad and Rudo, between April and September 1992, first as a member of an “unknown paramilitary formation” and then as a commander of the Third Visegrad Brigade of the Republika Srpska.

“In many occasions there was a clear pattern of treatment of civilians, especially men of fighting age who were led out of houses, harassed and interrogated,” said Maksumic.

Analysing the indictment count by count, Maksumic said the testimonies of the Prosecution witnesses were “convincing and reliable”, and that their “honest testimonies relying on their memory matched the decisive facts”.

The Chamber also commented on the testimony of the defendant saying that they did not find it “convincing”, and that his testimony was not reliable “because he gave it in order to escape criminal liability.”

According to the indictment, in May 1992 Savic ordered civilians from the settlement of Drinsko, in the municipality of Visegrad, to gather together and then gave them an ultimatum, threatening them with death, to leave the settlement on that day.

“The testimony from the witnesses for the Prosecution indicates that they did not leave Drinsko voluntarily. Undoubtedly, the address by the defendant represented psychological pressure on citizens of the village of Drinsko,” said the judge.

Among other things, Savic is charged with participating with other soldiers, on June 13, 1992, in the expulsion of Bosniaks from the settlement of Dusce, and separating and leading away a group of civilians who were executed and incinerated in a barn.

“The Chamber established that the defendant had effective control over his soldiers, and that only he could issue the order for expulsion and execution of civilians from Dusce,” said Maksumic.

While weighing the punishment, the judge said, the Chamber considered the degree of criminal liability, “motives for the committed acts” and the large number of victims as aggravating circumstances. The Court considered the “behaviour of the defendant before and after the committed act” as extenuating, the fact that he assisted some of his neighbours in the war and the fact that he had no prior convictions.

The reading of the verdict was attended by several members of the Association of Women Victims of War from Visegrad, among them Hajrija Kos, one of the witnesses for the Prosecution during the trail of Savic, who was taken ill in the courtroom.

Kos, according to her testimony, lost her father in Visegrad, and still does not know what happened to her mother, her sister and her children.