Bosnia Clears Serb Ex-Commander of War Crimes Against Civilians

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rejected the appeal of the State Prosecutor’s Office and upheld the first-instance verdict acquitting Rade Macura of charges of war crimes against the civilian population committed in the Bosanska Gradiska area in June 1992.

Miodrag Stojanovic, Macura’s lawyer, confirmed the information for BIRN on Friday.

“I have just received information from him [Macura]; the verdict was delivered to him by mail. I have not yet received the verdict, but the prosecutor’s appeal has been rejected, and the verdict is acquittal,” Stojanovic said.

Macura was commander of the First Company of the Second Battalion of the Bosnian Serb Army’s First Gradiska Brigade at the time.

By the first-instance verdict from October last year, Macura was acquitted of the charges that, as the commander of the First Company of the Second Battalion of the First Gradiska Brigade, in June 1992, during the search of the area in the village of Turjak – where a group of Bosniak civilians from Kozarac, fleeing from the war conflicts, was trying to cross the border with Croatia – he was present during the killing of ten civilians, including three women.

The indictment alleged that after asking the civilians to surrender, Bosnian Serb soldiers forced them to lie on the road and eat bullets, which made some of them sick, then ordered them to get up and killed them.

Explaining the verdict, the presiding judge, Zeljka Meranic said that the State Prosecutor’s Office had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused committed the acts he was charged with.

“It is not disputed that the accused commanded the company that participated in the search of Turjak, that he was physically there, as stated in the indictment. The Council did not establish whether he directly participated in the action or in the killing of civilians,” said Judge Marenić during the pronouncement of the first-instance verdict.

The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina filed an appeal against the first-instance verdict due to significant violations of the provisions of criminal procedure, incorrectly and incompletely established factual situation, with a proposal to amend the verdict or to order a retrial, while the Defense proposed the rejection of the appeal and confirmation of the earlier court decision.

The Appeals Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as confirmed by Macura’s lawyer for BIRN, rejected the Prosecutor’s appeal and upheld the first-instance verdict.

There is no possibility of appeal against this verdict.