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Enver Buza. Photo: BIRN BiH
The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court on Thursday upheld an appeal from Enver Buza, former commander of the Independent Battalion Prozor of the Bosnian Army, and quashed the first-instance verdict that sentenced him to 12 years in prison for wartime crimes in Uzdol, near the town of Prozor, in 1993.
The court said that Buza should be retried.
Under the first-instance verdict handed down in September 2019, Buza was found guilty of having controlled a unit that attacked the village of Uzdol on September 14, 1993 and killed 27 Croat civilians.
The verdict said that Buza was informed about the crime to a sufficient extent, which obliged him to conduct a thorough investigation. According to the judge, this was not done because he wanted to cover up the crime.
But his defence lawyer argued during the appeal that the first-instance court did not take into account important evidence that went in Buza’s favour and neglected the fact that he had initiated an investigation into the Uzdol incident.
