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The Higher Court building in Montenegrin capital Podgorica; Photo: BIRN/Borislav Visnjic
The Higher Court in Podgorica has terminated the detention of Slobodan Pekovic, who is accused of war crimes against the civilian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, because three years have passed since the indictment was filed without a first-instance verdict.
Pekovic fought with Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and is charged with the murder of two Bosniak civilians and with rape in the town of Foca during the wave of ethnic cleansing that struck eastern Bosnia early in the war.
“Pekovic’s detention was terminated because a first-instance verdict was not issued within three years from the date of the indictment. A measure of post-detention supervision has been imposed on him as well as the obligation to periodically report to the competent authority and the temporary confiscation of his travel documents,” Marija Rakovic from the Higher Court told BIRN.
Born in Pluzine on the Montenegrin border with Bosnia, 54-year-old Pekovic was arrested in October 2021 in Danilovgrad, where he lived, northwest of the capital Podgorica.
His trial marked the first time that rape as a war crime had come before Montenegrin courts. But despite the gravity of the charges, three years following his arrest the case remains plagued by delays.
According to the indictment, Pekovic participated in a Bosnian Serb Army assault on the village of Hum, near Foca, in June 1992, where he allegedly killed Bosniak villagers Emina and Mujo Sabanovic. Their bodies were then set on fire.
A second count accuses him of taking a woman, her underage daughter and several other people from the sports hall in Foca where they had been detained, and raping the woman in an apartment in the presence of another armed man in September 1992.
The woman is a protected witness in the case.
At the trial, Pekovic pleaded not guilty to both crimes.
