Verdict for Visegrad War Crimes Expected Next Week
Rackovic has been charged with participating in acts of detention, torture and rape in the summer of 1992, as well as attacks on Bosniak villages and destruction of property. The indictment alleges that he was initially a member of the Territorial Defense and then joined the Visegradska Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army. The trial lasted 14 months.
On Monday, May 11, the Ilija Juric trial will begin. Juric, a former member of the Croatian Defense Council, has been charged with the rape of a Serb woman in the village of Posavska Mahala in Odzak.
On Tuesday, May 12, the state prosecution will present its closing statement at the trial of Bosiljko and Ostoja Markovic, who have been charged with war crimes in Kotor-Varos. The indictment alleges that the defendants, both former members of the Bosnian Serb Army, raped a minor in June 1992.
On Tuesday, May 12, the state prosecution will present its closing statement at the trial of Aleksandar Cvetkovic. Cvetkovic, a former member of the Tenth Commando Squad of the Bosnian Serb Army, has been charged with genocide in Srebrenica. Cvetkovic allegedly participated in the mass killing of approximately 900 men from Srebrenica on the Branjevo farm in the municipality of Zvornik in July 1995.
The retrial of Fikret Planincic, Sead Menzil and Mirsad Vatrac, charged with crimes in Kotor-Varos, also begins on Tuesday. At the beginning of last year the defendants, all former members of the Territorial Defense in Kotor-Varos, were found guilty of participating in an attack on Serdari on September 17, 1992. Sixteen Serb civilians were killed in the attack.
Under the first instance verdict, Planincic and Menzil were sentenced to 11 and half years each in prison, while Vatrac was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison. However, the appellate chamber of the Bosnian state court accepted an appeal filed by the defense, which claimed that the verdict was incomprehensible and inconsistent.
