Bosnian Serb Ex-Policeman Convicted of Prijedor Persecution

The Bosnian state court in Sarajevo on Monday sentenced Mico Jurisic, a former member of the Tukovi reserve police forces at the police’s Public Security Station in Prijedor, to 11 years in prison for crimes against humanity, including involvement in several murders, in the Prijedor area in 1992.

Jurisic was convicted on five counts of persecution, murder, attempted murder and inhumane treatment.

He was found guilty of participating in the murders of two people in the village of Carakovo, and of trying to kill a group of Bosniak and Roma civilians by shooting at them while they were running away, wounding one of them in his heel.

“The trial chamber has determined that he put a knife to the throat of a five-year-old girl, [identified only by the initials] M.V., who suffered physical and mental pain and fear,” added presiding judge Minka Kreho.

Kreho said it had also been established that he treated one Bosniak man in an inhumane manner and participated in the murders of two others.

“The chamber has determined that Jurisic committed the crime within a widespread and systematic attack by the army and police of Republika Srpska targeted against the non-Serb population in the villages of Rizvanovici, Hambarine, Carakovo and other villages and settlements in the vicinity of Prijedor, while knowing about such an attack, and that his actions were part of that attack,” the judge added.

Under the same verdict, Jurisic was acquitted on three counts of persecution, abuse and murder.

Kreho said that while deciding on the sentence, the court took into account as mitigating circumstances the fact that Jurisic has no previous convictions and that he has a family. The gravity of the crimes, as well as their fatal consequences, were taken into account as aggravating circumstances.

This is a first-instance verdict and can be appealed.

Jurisic, who pleaded not guilty, was originally charged alongside Dragomir Tintor, who died during the proceedings.