Serbia Delays Djukic Trial in Row Over Documents

Despite his conviction in a Bosnian court for war crimes, former Bosnian Serb soldier Novak Djukic will not appear any time soon in a court in the Serbian capital after Bosnia failed to meet the demands set by Belgrade to continue his trial.

The last time Djukic showed up at the trial at the Belgrade Higher Court, where judges were due to rule on the fate of his case, was on June 1.

Bosnia’s state court, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, jailed the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army’s Ozren Tactical Group for 20 years in June 2014 for ordering an artillery squad to shell the Bosnian town of Tuzla on May 25, 1995. Seventy-one people died in the attack.

But the former general did not turn up to serve his sentence in Bosnia, claiming he was undergoing medical treatment in Serbia. He has not returned to Bosnia since.

Bosnia issued an international arrest warrant for him in October 2014, but Djukic cannot be extradited to Bosnia because the two countries have no mutual extradition treaty.

Serbia then offered to deal with the case, but the Serbian prosecution and Djukic’s lawyer said on June 1 that, without the complete files about his verdict from Bosnia, the ex-general cannot prepare his testimony properly.

Following a decision of the Higher Court, Serbia’s Ministry of Justice filed a request to its counterparts in Sarajevo for the case material to be transferred to Bosnia.

But the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which confirmed to BIRN that it received the request, says there is no basis for the submission of the whole case material

It says the court in Belgrade does not need to confirm the Bosnian court verdict, but just to take over enforcement of the sentence.

Serbia signed an agreement with Bosnia in 2010, which allows Sarajevo and Belgrade to ask each other to take over enforcement of sentences.

“The Court of BiH in its response recalled the agreement between our country and Serbia about mutual enforcement of court decisions in criminal matters, which is not related to the recognition of judgments made by the courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, but only to the enforcement of court decisions,” the Bosnian court said.

The Bosnian court noted that while Djukic’s defence had asked for the entire file, so the Serbian judiciary could review the legality of the verdict, there was no legal basis for that.

“Not a single agreement, or international act, stipulates that the enforcement court should evaluate the legality of conducted procedure of the court of the country that requests enforcement, so this also cannot be done by the Higher Court in Belgrade, because it is not competent as a higher court to examine the legality of the conducted procedure against Djukic,” the Court of BiH added.

It added that the Constitutional Court of Bosnia has already rejected Djukic’s complaint in which he said that his human rights had been violated because he did not have a fair trial.

Djukic’s lawyer, Milorad Konstantinovic, told BIRN that he had not yet seen the response of the Court of BiH, but he believes the Serbian judiciary should determine whether his client had a fair trial in Bosnia.

“How can the fairness of the proceedings be determined if there is no a review of the case file? It is a legal right in Serbia that every convicted person can try to prove that the procedure in the country that is seeking recognition of judicial decisions was not fair,” Konstantinovic said.

He added that the Belgrade High Court was not seeking to review the legality of the judgment, but only to rule on whether Djukic had a fair trial in Bosnia.

“The procedure for recognition of a foreign court’s decision would be meaningless if it was only about putting a seal or signature on it. This is why concealment of the files by the Court of BiH becomes more indicative,” Konstantinovic added.

He says the procedure will not be resumed until the records of the Bosnian state court arrive.

Serbia’s behaviour in the Djukic case has been criticized by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugosolavia, ICTY, and its chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, however.

“Serbia has not yet executed the sentence imposed by the Bosnian State Court in the Djukic case, which is widely recognized as an important test of Serbia’s commitment to regional cooperation,” Brammertz told UN Security Council last week.