Bosnian Croat Ex-Fighter Charged with Murdering Father and Son

Complex of state judicial institutions. Photo: BIRN BiH

The Bosnian prosecution on Friday charged ex-fighter Robert Bresic with committing a war crime against the civilian population.

The prosecution said that in late July 1992, Bresic and other members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO seized a father and a son from a building in the town of Maglaj.

The two Serbs were taken towards the village of Tunjice, where they were shot dead. Neither was a member of the military or involved in the conflict, according to the prosecution.

Bresic currently lives in Croatia.

In another indictment filed by the state prosecution on Friday, a former Bosnian Army First Corps soldier, Mustafa Gegaj, was charged with war crimes against Serbs in the Sarajevo neighbourhoods of Hrasnica, Butmir and Sokolovic Kolonija.

Gegaj is accused, in his capacity as security officer with the First Corps’ Fourth Motorised Brigade, with committing a war crime against the civilian population.

“He has been charged with having personally participated in torture in humiliating ways, grave forms of abuse and beating, as well as inflicting permanent physical and mental injuries to nine victims, who still feel the effects of the abuse, in detention facilities in the Hrasnica area, where Serb civilians from the Hrasnica, Butmir and Sokolovic Kolonija areas, including women and one girl, were unlawfully detained,” the prosecution said in a statement.

The State Investigation and Protection Agency arrested Gegaj on December 15.

Both the indictments have been sent to the state court for confirmation.