Bosnian Prosecutors Demand Higher Sentence for Brcko Killings

The Bosnian state prosecution on Friday appealed against the verdict sentencing Mensur Djakic to two years in prison and acquitting another former Croatian Defence Council fighter, Begzad Kajtazi.

Prosecutor Miroslav Janjic told the appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court that the two-year sentence imposed on Djakic was below the legal minimum.

“Such a sentence is imposed before municipal courts for thievery… I consider that the sentence diminishes the prosecutors’ work and the victims’ feelings,” Janjic said.

He also argued that the facts were wrongly determined in the acquittal of Kajtazi.

Djakic was found guilty last September of having watched a member of the 108th Brigade of the Croatian Defence Council, which he commanded, murdering three captured Serbs in the village of Bukvik in the Brcko District in September 1992 and then failing to take measures to punish the killer.

The court found that the three Bosnian Serbs were injured and were being treated in a house in Bukvik when they were killed.

The verdict said that all three Serbs were incapacitated from fighting and were killed in front of Djakic, who did nothing about it.

The judge argued that Djakic had a legal obligation to punish the perpetrator.

Under the same verdict, Kajtazi was acquitted of killing two Serb women during the military operation in the village of Bukvik.

The court determined that two Serbs were killed during the operation in Bukvik, but was unable to determine beyond reasonable doubt that Kajtazi committed the murders.

Djakic’s lawyer Osman Mulahalilovic claimed on Friday that there were substantial violations of criminal proceedings during the trial, while Kajtazi’s lawyer Mirsad Islamovic asked for the prosecution’s appeal be rejected as unfounded.

The appeals chamber will rule on the case at a later stage.