Adamovic and Lukic Sentenced to 36 Years, Possible Arrest

The defendants failed to appear for the passing of the sentence, and the Appeals Chamber issued an order that they be put into custody.
 
Appeals Chamber established that Lukic, as commander of the Municipal Battalion of the Territorial Defence, and Adamovic as commander of the Town’s Defence’s Command, participated in the joint criminal enterprise aimed at expelling the non-Serb population.
 
More than 150 Bosniak civilians were killed during this expulsion, and there were illegal arrests, beatings and other inhumane acts.
“Defendants Lukic and Adamovic in their positions, together with Vinko Kondic, who was chief of the Kljuc police station, were members of the crisis headquarters, the most significant body of power which managed the preparation of armament of Serb units, and commanding over them in the filed,” said Azra Miletic, presiding judge of the Appeals Chamber.
 
Lukic and Adamovic were found guilty of the illegal arrest of Bosniak and Croat civilians on May 27, 1992, their beating and imprisonment in the police station in Kjuc, as well as the attack on the village of Velagici in early June, after which men of combat age were locked up in the nearby school, and at least 78 of them executed.
 
On the same day, said the verdict, members of Serb forces, among them defendant Adamovic, entered the village of Prhovo and killed over 40 people.
 
The Appeals Chamber also sentenced Lukic and Adamovic for participation in the attacks on undefended villages of Pudin Han, Peci, Donja Sanica, Ramici, which resulted in the unlawful arrest, imprisonment and murder of civilians.
 
“The role of Lukic and Adamovic was everything but marginal. As soon as the beginning of the year, Lukic was planning, organising Serb Territorial Defence and distributing weapons to units which will later commit crimes, while Adamovic in June 1992 informed the crisis headquarters of numerous operations in the field,” said Miletic.
 
She added that Kulic and Adamovic acted with premeditation, and significantly contributed to systematic persecution of non-Serb population.
 
Lukic and Adamovic were acquitted of the charge that on July 10, 1992, they participated in the murder of over 200 civilians near Donji Biljani, as well as systematic demolition of Catholic and Muslim religious objects in Kljuc.
 
“These acts follow the same pattern, but since they happened after the Army of Republika Srpska was formed in Kljuc, when the role of the defendants started to wane, they cannot be directly linked to them,” said Miletic.
 
Speaking about the sentence, judge Miletic said that aggravating circumstances were large number of victims and consequences which for the survivors are “permanent, vast and do not lessen with time”, while the extenuating circumstance was the age of Lukic and Adamovic.
 
With the first instance verdict from March 2011, the court acquitted Lukic and Adamovic of all charges. The Appeals Chamber quashed this decision and ordered a retrial, which started in March.
 
The defendants can appeal today’s verdict since they were acquitted in the first instance trial.