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Zeljko Jukic, a former member of the Croatian Defence Council’s ‘Rama’ Brigade, was found guilty on Wednesday of participating in the forced disappearance of five Bosniak civilians, as well as torture, looting and the forced displacement of non-Serb civilians.
“The trial chamber finds that the accused had direct intent,” said Jasmina Kosovic, the presiding judge.
“He committed crimes, even though he knew that they would cause despair, fear for the lives of the civilians and their loved ones, which would eventually cause the permanent departure of the Bosniak population from the municipality of Prozor,” the judge said.
Jukic was found guilty of taking Bosniak civilians, in cooperation with other Croatian Defence Council members, from Prozor to the Dretelj detention camp, where he tortured them, as well as of looting civilians’ property in the villages of Visnjani and Lapsunj.
He was convicted of torturing a man in July 1993, in the fire station in Prozor, by putting a lit cigarette to his cheek and burning his beard, and of forcing imprisoned Bosiniak civilians to fight each other in August 1993, in the village of Ustire.
Jukic was also found guilty of taking three men to a dump in Prozor in August 1993; one escaped but the other two disappeared without trace.
The fact that Jukic did not have any previous criminal record and that he was only 23 years old in 1993 were taken into account as mitigating circumstances, while the number of victims and the seriousness of the crime, which still has an impact on the families of the victims, were taken into account as the aggravating factors.
“There is no proof that the accused Jukic tried at any point to save at least one human life,” said judge Kosovic.
However Jukic was acquitted of murdering one man and torturing another at the bakery in Prozor.
The conviction can be appealed.
