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Azra Miletic, the presiding judge, said that the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina failed to introduce evidence which would “prove beyond all reasonable doubt“ that Tomic and Josic, former members of the Army of Republika Srpska, killed Muradif Ibrahimovic, Izet Nuhanovic and Semso Nuhanovic in the Marhosi Forest, near Kozluk in June 1992.
“The Prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ljubo Tomic and Krsto Josic committed the crimes they were accused of,” said presiding judge Azra Miletic.
This verdict is final and it cannot be appealed.
In a first instance verdict, pronounced in March 2010, Tomic and Josic were acquitted of all charges. But the Prosecution appealed the verdict, citing ‘substantive violations of the criminal proceedings provisions and wrongly and incompletely determined facts.’ The verdict was revoked by the Appellate Chamber in October 2010, which ordered a retrial.
Judge Miletic said that the panel weighed especially the testimony of Nurija Nuhanovic, the only survivor of the incident in question.
“In order to convict the accused, the testimony had to be of excellent quality, but it contained a number of inconsistencies and arbitrary conclusions, uncorroborated by any of the other witnesses,” said Miletic.
Miletic said the panel further called into question the testimony because Nuhanovic did not witness the the death of the three men himself.
“The witness was not an eyewitness to the events. Moreover, after he was separated from the men, he did not inform any of the people he saw afterwards of the suspected killers. The information should have been shared with the others given the gravity of the crime and the fact that one of the victims was his son,” Miletic concluded in the statement.
Miletic reminded the court that the victims have a right to initiate claims for damages to property.
