Lazic: Trial Postponed until Next Year

Indictee Lazic said that his Defence attorney Stanko Petrovic told him that he would not be able to attend the hearing. The Appellate Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina postponed the beginning of the trial until February 5, 2013.

“We have not received a hand-delivery receipt for the summons sent to the Defence attorney, but we do have a letter in which the Defence attorney says that he has other obligations. He is asking the Court to either postpone this hearing or release him of his duties as ex-officio attorney,” said Nedzad Popovac, Chairman of the Appellate Chamber.

Indictee Lazic pointed out that he wanted to be represented by Defence attorney Petrovic in the future. The Appellate Chamber said that it would send a new summons to the Defence attorney and consider the possibility of sanctioning him.

The beginning of the retrial of Lazic was previously postponed on November 14, because the Defence attorney failed to appear at that hearing as well.

In June this year the Appellate Chamber revoked a first instance verdict under which Bosko Lazic was acquitted of charges for giving a false testimony.

According to the charges, Lazic told State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA investigators that he heard that Zoran Zivanovic killed Bosniaks in the Vuk Karadzic school building in Bratunac in 1995 and that he separated men in Potocari on July 12 and 13.

Testifying before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 2007, Lazic said that he neither saw Zivanovic in the school building nor in Potocari.

Following a trial for crimes committed in the Srebrenica area, Zoran Zivanovic, Zdravko Bozic and Zeljko Zaric were acquitted of charges as per a second instance verdict pronounced in February 2010. Under the same verdict, Mladen Blagojevic was sentenced to seven years in prison.
S.U.