Bogdanovic: Violent Person or Decent Soldier

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced it would prove the indictee’s responsibility for rape and unlawful detention of civilians, while the Defence denied the allegations, saying they were incorrect.

Bogdanovic is charged with having come to a Bosniak couple’s apartment in Mostar in the night of May 25/26, 1993, accompanied by five other members of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, and raped the woman. The indictee, together with the other soldiers, then allegedly took the woman’s husband to Heliodrom detention camp, where he was detained for 30 days.

“We shall prove that the indictee was aware of the fact that he, as an armed HVO member, entered an apartment owned by unarmed civilians, that he was accompanied by unidentified soldiers, that they took their appliances, jewelry and money away and that he raped the injured party and unlawfully took her husband away,” State Prosecutor Remzija Smailagic said in her introductory arguments.

The Defence said that Bogdanovic had neither forced any female person to do something nor had he ever unlawfully detained anyone.

Defence attorney Nada Dalipagic said she found it “hard to understand how the Prosecution filed the indictment without one single piece of evidence”, adding there was only a statement given by the injured party 17 years after the event, which “raises doubts”.

“The indictee was on the frontlines as a decent and exemplary soldier during the course of the war. Witnesses, whom the Defence will invite to testify about those circumstances, will confirm this,” Dalipagic said.

The trial of Bogdanovic, who is defending himself while at liberty, is due to continue on February 1, when the first two Prosecution witnesses will be examined.