Markovic: Indictment Revised

Seven months after the start of the trial for crimes committed in the Doboj area, the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina has revised the parts of the indictment against Miodrag Markovic related to the date and type of crime and, in part, the facts alleged in the charges.

State Prosecutor Bozidarka Dodik said that Markovic is charged, under the amended indictment, with having come to a house in Dragalovci village, Doboj municipality in the evening hours on July 11, 1992. He allegedly took injured party Z1 from the house and took her to a nearby meadow.

The indictment further alleges that, after she tried to run away, Markovic hit her “forcefully with the butt of a gun”, tore her shirt off and raped her. Under the revised indictment, the Prosecution charges Markovic with war crimes against civilians, specifically rape and torture.

At today’s hearing the Trial Chamber rejected the Defence’s proposal to present additional evidence by re-examining witness Mile Blagojevic and presenting a few pieces of material evidence.

“We consider that the additional examination will not offer new answers. (…) In terms of the request to check the injured party’s records at the Doboj hospital, an earlier document, issued by that institution, says that no medical examinations at that hospital were registered in July or August 1992,” Trial Chamber Chairman Senadin Bektasevic said.

Mile Blagojevic, former Intelligence and Security Affairs Officer with the VRS military police, who testified in defence of the indictee, said, at a hearing held in November 2010, that in July 1992 he was tasked with determining whether Miodrag Markovic had raped minor Z1.

During the course of his testimony Blagojevic said that “in his opinion, the indictee did not rape the injured party”.

The trial of Markovic began in September 2010, after he pleaded not guilty to the allegations that he raped minor Z1. During the course of the presentation of evidence, the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina examined five witnesses, including Z1, while the Defence examined three witnesses and indictee Markovic, who testified in his own defence.

A.M.A.