More than 100,000 Days of Custody Measures for War Crimes Suspects
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The defendants in custody spent 105, 850 days or 290 years and two months in custody over the course of the past decade, prior to either being released or sent to a prison in order to serve their sentences.
Abduladhim Maktouf, a former member of the Bosnian Army, was sentenced to three years in prison under a second instance verdict for war crimes in the Travnik area. Maktouf was the first defendant held in custody in the court’s history, back in June 2004.
Vehid Bajraktarevic, who was suspected of war crimes in Buzim, Stevo Jovanovic, who was charged with war crimes in Cajnice, and Jozo Djojic, who is now on trial for war crimes in Odzak, spent the shortest time in custody. They were detained for a period lasting between ten days and two weeks before being released to liberty.
Nedzad Hodzic, charged with war crimes on Mount Igman and in the village of Trusina near Konjic, spent the longest time in custody. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina terminated the custody measures against him after four and a half years.
Hodzic, a former member of the Zulfikar Squad of the Bosnian Army, is attending two separate trials for war crimes, one involving the village of Trusina, near Konjic, and Mount Igman. Hodzic has been held in custody from mid-2009 to February 2014.
According to the criminal law, a person can be held in custody for three years after the filing of an indictment. However, when Hodzic’s three-year custody measure in the case of the Trusina attack expired, he was released and then arrested again immediately. He was then ordered into custody in the case dealing with war crimes in Mount Igman.
Several defendants were released on bail. Kreso Lucic was released in 2007 after having handed over his travel documents and putting his, real estate, worth 200,000 KM, up for mortgage. Gojko Klickovic and Jovan Ostojic, who stood trial for war crimes in Bosanska Krupa, and Edin Dzeko, Nihad Bojadzic and Zulfikar Alispago, charged with war crimes in Konjic, were released on bail later on.
Klickovic offered 216,000 KM, Ostojic 371,690 KM, Alispago 530,000, Bojadzic 746,658 and Dzeko 600,000 KM as bail.
According to the law, custody measures are a more severe form of discipling, and are undertaken to ensure the defendant’s impossibility of flight, the potential destruction of evidence and the danger that defendants may influence witnesses or accomplices – these are some of the most frequent reasons for which the state court has ordered custody measures.
The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has gradually reduced the number of persons held in custody, so custody measures were ordered against about 30 defendants in 2007, while only three defendants were held in custody last year. In most cases the state court ordered prohibitive measures instead of custody measures against defendants. Those measures include a ban on leaving the defendant’s place of residence, the confiscation of travel documents and a ban on establishing or maintaining any contacts with potential witnesses or accomplices.
In case a verdict of conviction is passed down against a defendant, the time he/she has spent in custody is calculated towards the defendant’s sentence. If a defendant is acquitted of charges, he/she may get compensation from the state for the time they spent under custody. Following the pronouncement of verdicts of release, around 600,000 KM has been paid to defendants charged before the State Court as compensation for the time they spent in custody.
