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No hearings have been held at the trial of Goran Saric, who is charged with genocide in Srebrenica, for nearly three months, because the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is trying to ensure testimonies by a few more witnesses.
Those witnesses previously testified before the Hague Tribunal. The Bosnian state prosecution included the transcripts of their testimonies in the case file, but the defense insists on cross-examining them.
The Bosnian state prosecution says it could not contact those witnesses earlier, because it did not know what the Court would decide in regard to admission of transcripts of their testimonies.
“One week after the chamber’s decision in October the prosecutor submitted a request to the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) to lift the immunity of the witnesses, which is a precondition for their testimony. The decision, lifting the immunity, was rendered on December 23. A couple of days later the prosecutor sent a request for international legal assistance to the countries in which the witnesses and expert witnesses reside in order to ensure their testimony in court,” the Bosnians state prosecution explained.
Saric’s defense attorney Aleksandar Lazarevic said one should not wait until the last minute to sort out such issues. “This case has been ongoing for a certain period of time. We have had many chances to obtain the consent,” he said.
According to his the defense attorney, the prosecutor thought the defense would accept whatever had come from the Hague. He considers that the defendant’s basic rights would be violated in that case.
“The court should have done it at a status conference, because in its first motion the prosecution offered a list of witnesses. Therefore the court should have requested the prosecution and defense to declare themselves in this regard and rendered a decision,” Lazarevic said.
The trial of Saric for Srebrenica genocide began on November 19, 2013. The status conference had been held prior to that.
The trial of Zoran Bjelica and Novica Tripkovic, who have been charged with war crimes in Kalinovik, was paused for about half a year because of procedures related to protection measures for witness S-5. Tripkovic’s defense did not request feedback from the Hague in due time.
In addition to the procedural issues, illness of defendants is another reason for postponing trials. This happened at the trial for Kotor-Varos crimes. Neither the prosecution nor the defense want the case against defendant Dragoslav Bojic, who is undergoing medical treatment for cancer, to be separated from the case against the other defendants.
He is charged together with Savo Tepic, Dusko Maksimovic, Dusko Vujicic, Radojko Keverovic and Ilija Kurusic. The trial chamber announced a new beginning of the trial in this case on February 29.
The last witness at that trial was examined in February last year.
Defense attorney Milan Romanic said his client has to undergo another medical examination at the end of this week, but he would most probably appear at the new beginning of the trial.
