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The Bosnian court has decided that the trial of Zeljko Mejakic, Momcilo Gruban, Dusan Fustar and Dusko Knezevic, will begin on November 14, with the presentation of evidence is scheduled to begin on November 23.
One more status conference will be held before the beginning of the trial, where decisions are to be made regarding adoption of evidence established before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and on witness protection.
Mejakic, Gruban, Fustar and Knezevic are charged that from April 30, 1992 to the end of that year they forcefully detained and took civilians from the territory of Prijedor to Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje detention camps, committing crimes against humanity.
The Bosnian prosecution, headed by prosecutor Peter Kidd, announced that it plans to question around 56 witnesses in some 34 days.
“Witnesses will talk about the systematic attack on Prijedor and the events they survived in Keraterm and Omarska camps,” Kidd told the court.
According to the prosecution, many witnesses who will appear have already testified in The Hague at the trials of Miroslav Kvocka and Milomir Stakic, both of whom were convicted for crimes committed in the Prijedor area. Additional protection measures will be requested for some of these witnesses.
Jovan Simic, Mejakic’s defence attorney,complained “the prosecutor announced introduction of numerous written documents and evidence taken over from the Hague tribunal”. Other defence lawyers supported this statement.
“If the prosecution does not make some sort of a selection, this trial will be ineffective and will last foryears,” Simic said.
He also added that the attacks on Prijedor and events that took place in Keraterm and Omarska camps cannot be connected to each other and explained that those were “events independent from each other” and that the two locations were “investigation centres”.
“If the prosecution starts connecting the two, then we will all lose a lot of time that the events are not connected,” Mejakic’s defence attorney warned.
The Bosnian court confirmed the indictment against the four on July 14, 2006, after the prosecution adapted it to local laws. All four were transferred from The Hague to Sarajevo at the beginning of May 2006.
The court has scheduled a new status conference for November 6.
