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Prosecutor Miroslav Janic said the travel restriction was necessary because witnesses involved in the case live in the cantons of Una-Sana and Tuzla. He said the possibility of Oric fleeing the country was related to his extradition from Switzerland.
Oric is suspected of murdering several Serb civilians in the village of Zalazje near Srebrenica in the summer of 1992.
“Reasonable doubt arises from the witness testimony,” Janjic said.
Edina Residovic, Oric’s defense counsel, said allegations that Oric ordered his subordinates to commit killings had already been adjudicated at the Hague Tribunal.
Residovic said that the Hague Tribunal acquitted Oric because he didn’t have effective control over subordinate soldiers in Srebrenica.
“The units were operating independently, as independent groups with local commanders. From these new witnesses, there is no reasonable doubt,” Residovic said.
Residovic said that there had been no judicial decisions or ongoing proceedings regarding alleged crimes in Zalazje. She said they weren’t even mentioned in the Hague Tribunal’s indictment against Oric.
“Naser Oric was acquitted of all command actions,” Residovic repeated.
Oric’s defense team believes that due to the lack of reasonable doubt the travel ban measures cannot be imposed.
“Oric didn’t know the witnesses the prosecution was supposed to interrogate,” defense counsel Lejla Covic said. She said Oric didn’t flee to Switzerland, but went to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide.
She said Oric knew he was a suspect in the case since 2008, but never tried to influence witnesses.
The state prosecution’s proposal to impose prohibitive measures was issued after Oric was extradited from Switzerland. He was arrested by Swiss authorities on June 10, as per an international arrest warrant issued by Serbia for crimes he allegedly committed in the Srebrenica area.
Requests for extradition were submitted by both Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Oric was detained in Switzerland for two weeks while the legal battle for his extradition unfolded. Immediately upon his arrival at Sarajevo Airport, Oric was taken to the Bosnian state prosecution, the institution authorized to conduct the investigation since 2009.
The Bosnian state court will render a decision on the travel ban at a later stage.
