Bosnian Court Confirms Verdict for Wartime Rape

The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Thursday confirmed a verdict under which former Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry employee Milisav Ikonic was sentenced to nine years in prison for the rape of a woman in Rogatica in July 1992. Former Bosnian Serb soldier Zoran Ilic was acquitted of raping another woman.

In 2018, Ikonic was found guilty in the first instance of taking the woman from a wartime camp in a school in Rogatica to a nearby apartment and raping her over a period of six days.

“Having held a session, the Appellate Division Panel delivered a judgment dismissing as ill-founded the appeal filed by defense for the accused Milisav Ikonic, so the trial judgment delivered by this Court is upheld,” the court said in a statement.

“The injured party [codenamed] S-1 convincingly and consistently described the traumatic situation in which she found herself, as well as the things that happened to her,” the presiding judge in the original trial, Halil Lagumdzija, said in September 2018.

The appeals chamber also confirmed the acquittal of Ilic because of “insufficient evidence”.

The verdict is final and cannot be appealed.