Bosnian War Crimes Convicts Demand Retrial

The lawyers for Abduladhim Maktouf and Goran Damjanovic said that they intend to apply for revision process after the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that the criminal code was wrongly applied by the Bosnian state court when they were tried, leaving them with sentences which could have been too harsh.

Senad Kreho, who represents Damjanovic, said that he would immediately file a motion for release, given that his client has spent more than six years in prison.

“We will submit a proposal to the state court for retrial,” said Kreho, arguing that the Strasbourg decision took precedence over Bosnian national law.

The European court ruled that the men could have been given shorter jail sentences if the 1976 former Yugoslav criminal code was used in their trials instead of the 2003 criminal code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was adopted after they committed their crimes.

The verdict could mean that all cases in which the Bosnian state court used the 2003 criminal code, more than 50 of them, could be overturned.

“As for the other cases judged by the 2003 law, it is likely that their attorneys will submit a proposal. The court will not overturn any decisions automatically,” Kreho said.

There are several appeals before Bosnia’s constitutional court regarding the application of the law.

Zvonko Mijan, the constitutional court’s registrar, said before the Strasbourg ruling that these cases would be settled after the European rights court made its decision.

“I think that the decision from Strasbourg will be a roadmap for the implementation of standards primarily by domestic, ordinary courts in the country, and of course by the constitutional court,” Mijan said.

The Bosnian state court issued a statement claiming that the Strasbourg decision only effected the cases of Maktouf and Damjanovic and that “no state court verdicts will be overturned”.