Closing Statements at Perica Adzic’s Trial

Adzic, former member of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, is charged with having come to a school building in Zepce, where wounded members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ABiH, were held, in June 1993, approached the beds, where two wounded men were getting an infusion and wounded one of them.

The Zenica-Doboj Cantonal Prosecution considers it proved that the indictee committed war crimes against the wounded and prisoners of war.

“The witnesses explicitly said that they saw the indictee when he came to the school classroom, which was used as the room for the wounded. They saw that he broke the infusion bottle and mistreated Nazim Grabus, threatened the others and shot at Nermin Purak, who was lying and was unable to defend himself, because he had previously been severely wounded on his hand,” said Prosecutor Branislav Tomas.

According to him, the Defence has not presented one single piece of evidence that would bring the allegations contained in the indictment into question.

The Prosecutor mentioned that the act described in the indictment was classified according to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, considering the fact that the Prosecution of BiH referred the confirmed indictment to the Cantonal Prosecution in Zenica.

Defence attorney Kresimir Zubak said that the fact that the indictment was “general and superficial” caught him by surprise and that he expected that the Court of BiH would not even confirm it.

He said that Zubak said that the legal classification of the crime was not in harmony with the positive penalty legislation.

He mentioned that it was generally known that all courts in BiH, except for judicial institutions at the state level, respected the principle according to which the law that was in effect, when the crime in question as committed, was applied and that the Cantonal Prosecution could have changed the classification of this crime.

According to the Defence, the legal classification and factual description of the crime were not in harmony. It said that the Prosecution did not have evidence about the type, character and gravity or the injury, which the indictee allegedly caused.

Zubak said that Prosecution witnesses’ testimonies were unconvincing and inconsistent and that no evidence was presented about the important allegations and circumstances.

“The indictee did not deny having wounded Nermin Purak. We presented evidence about the circumstances and the indictee’s condition. Up to the present day he has expressed regret for what happened,” Zubak said.

The pronouncement of the verdict is scheduled for October 23.