Custody Extension for Nine Suspects Requested

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, requested an extension of custody due to a danger that the suspects might influence witnesses and accomplices and hide evidence material while at liberty. 

Andrija Bjelosevic, Milan Savic, Dusan Kuzmanovic, Marinko Djukic, Miroslav Pijunovic, Dobrivoj Culibrk, Sasa Gavranovic, Vitomir Devic and Zoran Sljuk are charged with crimes committed in Teslic and Doboj in 1992. 

Four of the suspects – Predrag Markocevic, Dragan Marijanovic, Darijo Slavuljica and Predrag Subotic were released from custody as per a Prosecution’s proposal.

Prosecutor Mirza Hukeljic said that property owned by several of the suspects was searched on September 1 and that documents, which influenced the further course of the investigation, were confiscated. As he said, during the course of the past month the Prosecution had examined six new witnesses and five suspects. He said that their statements were submitted to the Court of BiH as confidential documents. 

He further said that the witnesses’ statements indicated that suspect Djukic participated in hiding and relocating a mass grave, while Bjelosevic obtained a number of confidential documents from this and other cases thanks to his “reputation in society”. Also, as he said, suspects Culibrk, Gavranovic and Devic could influence their former comrades from the “Mice” paramilitary formation. 

The Defence of nine suspects requested the Court of BiH to reject the Prosecution’s proposal as “unfounded, abstract and non-concrete”, proposing to the Court to order some prohibiting measures instead of custody. 

Tatjana Savic, Defence attorney of suspect Bjelosevic, said that some documents were confiscated from her client and sealed, but he did not attend their opening, so there was a suspicion that either the Prosecution or somebody else could damage them. 

“Over the course of one month, during which these men have been held in custody, the Prosecution has examined six witnesses. There are 93 more witnesses. If they continue at this pace, these men will be held in custody for a year-and-a-half,” Savic said. 

She mentioned that this investigation was initiated back in 1992 and that it was conducted in Doboj, Zenica and The Hague and, since 2007 by the Prosecution of BiH.  

“I must ask why the custody measure is requested now, 22 years later, and why these witnesses were not examined before,” Savic said.

The Defence teams said that the Prosecution’s allegation that none of the witnesses had requested protection measures since the suspects had been ordered into custody could not be considered a reason for a custody extension.

“Four of the suspects were released. Slavuljica admitted the shooting several times, saying that his mind was peaceful now. They arrested and released him again,” said Milorad Rasevic, Defence attorney of suspect Savic.

He said that this custody order motion reflected “the Prosecution’s unprofessionalism and inaction”. 

“These men were arrested on the day of the visit by Chief Hague Prosecutor Serge Brammertz to BiH in order to show him that the Prosecution was doing something,” Rasevic said.

Attorneys of Culibrk, Sljuka and Bjelosevic pointed to their clients’ bad health condition, which, as they said, had deteriorated in detention.