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Radomir Pantic, one of the defendants. Photo: BIRN BiH.
The appeals section of the Bosnian state court has acquitted two former policemen and three Bosnian Serb Army ex-soldiers of the murder of at least 57 civilians in the village of Zaklopaca in the Milici municipality on May 16, 1992, one of the defendants’ lawyers told BIRN.
“I have received a verdict from the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rejecting the Bosnian state prosecution’s appeal and confirming the first-instance verdict,” defendant Radomir Pantic’s lawyer Radivoje Lazarevic said.
In March this year, the state court acquitted Pantic, Nenad Vukotic, Branko Jolovic, Milomir Milosevic and Nikola Losic of the killings in its first-instance ruling.
The court found that it had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the men murdered the 57 civilians in Zaklopaca.
“None of the direct eyewitnesses was consistent in their statements when it comes to the perpetrators of this horrible crime,” presiding judge Mira Smajlovic said at the time.
Pantic was accused of involvement in the crimes as commander of the police’s Public Security Station in the town of Milici, Milosevic as a policeman and the other defendants as Bosnian Serb Army soldiers.
