Mirsad Vatrac pleads not guilty to crimes in Kotor-Varos
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According to the indictment of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vatrac is charged along with Fikret Planincic, Rasim Lisancic, Sead Menzil and others in taking part in the attack on the civilian Serb population of Serdari village (Kotor-Varos municipality) from June to November 1992.
“The indictees had conducted a previously planned infantry attack, in which 16 civilians, aged between four and 60, were killed. Some of the civilians were killed from firearms in front of or inside their family houses,” the indictment alleges.
Several persons, including a highly-pregnant woman, were injured and houses and other buildings set on fire during an attack conducted in the early morning hours on September 17, 1992.
The trial of Planincic, Lisancic and Menzil, who are indicted for the same charges started on December 15 this year, and at the beginning of the trial, Dragan Corlija, Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, requested the Trial Chamber to merge the proceedings against three indictees with the proceedings against Vatrac.
Vatrac was arrested in Croatia on the basis of an international arrest warrant, and handed over to Bosnia and Herzegovina on October 26 this year, and since then he has been in custody. Since he pleaded not guilty, Vatrac’s trial will start in the future period.
