Klickovic et al: Revised Indictment

By the revised indictment of September 21, 2010, Gojko Klickovic, Mladen Drljaca and Jovan Ostojic are no longer charged with participation in a joint criminal enterprise, JCE. According to the previous version of the indictment, the JCE began in the summer of 1991 with the aim of creating a separate state of Bosnian Serbs from which most non-Serbs would be permanently removed.

The Prosecution originally claimed that the three indictees participated in the JCE in collaboration with Radovan Karadzic, Momcilo Krajisnik and other members of the Main Board of the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, at the state and regional level, as well as members of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS.

“This is the fourth indictment against me. I wonder how many times they are going to change it. This one no longer alleges that we committed that JCE, but that we executed orders,” Klickovic said.

The second indictee’s Defence said it would express its opinion on the revised indictment in its closing arguments, while Ostojic’s Defence said the indictment was still “imprecise”.

Klickovic, former President of the wartime Presidency of Bosanska Krupa and Commander of the Crisis Committee of that Serb municipality; Drljaca, former Chamber President with the Temporary Court Martial and Commission for the Exchange of Prisoners in Bosanska Krupa; and Ostojic, former Commander of the 11th Krupa Light Infantry Brigade, are charged with persecution, murder, deportation, torture and other inhumane acts committed against the non-Serb population in Bosanska Krupa during the course of 1992.

Radovan Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, is currently on trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In March 2009 the Hague Tribunal pronounced a second instance verdict against Krajisnik, sentencing him to 20 years in prison for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

State Prosecutor Dzevad Muratbegovic said that Klickovic and Drljaca are still charged with participation in the JCE at the municipal level by establishing, with the use of force in collaboration with other SDS members, the Serb municipality of Bosanska Krupa in which Serbs made up the absolute majority.

The Prosecutor explained that one of the counts that had been removed charged Klickovic and Drljaca with responsibility for the fact that some guards, particularly a person named Zeljko Smoljanac, took personal belongings, including identification documents, money and other valuables, from prisoners held in the Petar Kocic school building.

In addition, the count against Klickovic that charged him with responsibility for the murder of a group of “Joks” members in the Petar Kocic school building in the first half of August 1992 has also been removed from the indictment. The murders were allegedly committed by Joja Plavanjac.

The Prosecution alleges that Plavanjac was a member of the 11th Krupa Light Infantry Brigade and subordinated to Ostojic.

As explained in the courtroom, the revised indictment contains an amended qualification of the crime for which Klickovic and Drljaca are charged. The crime is changed from “deprivation of the right to a fair and unbiased trial” to “detention”.

The previous version of the indictment alleged that in April 1992 detainees were taken to the Temporary Court Martial, examined and summarily sentenced. Some of them were then released to liberty, while others were imprisoned without being informed about the Court’s decision. In this way they were considered to have been deprived of the right to a fair and unbiased trial.

The trial of Klickovic, Drljaca and Ostojic began in May 2008.

After the Prosecution presented the revised indictment, the Court decided that the presentation of closing arguments would begin on October 5 and 6.