Bosnian Serb War Rape Defendant Absconds from Trial
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A hearing in the case against wartime Territorial Defence fighter Dusan Spasojevic at the Bosnian state court in Sarajevo was cancelled on Tuesday as his lawyer said he had received a message from the defendant’s relatives saying that he had absconded.
“On Friday I got a text message from the relatives: ‘He has left,’” said defence lawyer Nenad Rubez.
“They asked me whether they should report to the Ministry of Internal Affairs that he has gone, that he is considered missing… My opinion is that he is in Serbia,” Rubez added.
He said that he hoped the defendant would change his mind and come back to stand trial.
Spasojevic went on trial in February last year, accused of raping a Bosniak woman at an elementary school that was being used as a detention facility in the village of Malesici in the Zvornik municipality in May 1992.
He allegedly entered a classroom in which detainees were being held and took the woman out under the pretext of bringing food for her baby. He then raped her behind the school building, the indictment claims.
Spasojevic has also been charged in a separate case, along with six other people, accused of committing crimes against humanity in the village of Jusici, near Zvornik.
