Jail Urged for Killing in Bosnia’s Rogatica

The prosecution in its closing arguments at the district court in Eastern Sarajevo on Monday said that Dragisa Cacic, Milenko Cacic and Voja Motika should be found guilty of the wartime crimes, but the defence argued that the evidence did not support a conviction.

According to the indictment, the three soldiers murdered Midhat Dzamegovic near the village of Starcici on August 8, 1992, wounded his 13-year-old son Meho and then tortured him a day later.

“All three defendants were Bosnian Serb Army members, from the regional headquarters in Rogatica, while Mihdat and Meho Dzambegovic were civilians,” said prosecutor Rajko Colovic.

“Meho authentically described what he survived on August 8 and 9. He identified the defendants as the people who committed those crimes from the indictment,” he said.

He pointed out that Meho Dzambegovic said that after the shooting of his father, Cacic hit him with his gun in his back.

“Milenko and Vojo forcibly took him from his father and said that they would not let him go… Milenko pointed the gun at him,” the prosecutor said, adding that the accused held the boy in the hope of getting information from him for the Bosnian Serb Army.

He said that defence witness statements saying that members of an unknown unit were in the area were fabricated in order to conceal the defendants’ guilt.

But Dragisa Cacic’s lawyer Nenad Rubez said the prosecution had failed to prove that the accused committed the crime they were charged with, and asked the court for an acquittal.

“The statements of the prosecution witnesses were contradictory. Meho did not see who fired [the shot that killed his father] and the charges were based on assumptions,” said Rubez.

He added that the defence had proved that Midhat Dzambegovic was not a civilian but a member of the Bosnian Army and that ‘sehid’ (martyr) was written on his gravestone.

Radivoje Lazarevic, the defence lawyer for Milenko Cacic, said the prosecution did not show that his client took action to “kill, wound and torture”.

He also pointed out that Meho Dzambegovic said he did not know who fired the deadly shot and that he assumed that it was Milenko Cacic.

Motka’s lawyer Dragoslav Peric also said that the allegations were not proven and asked for acquittal.

The court will deliver its verdict on March 24.