Verdict against Hajrudin Trle Quashed

The Supreme Court quashed the verdict passed down by the Cantonal Court in Tuzla in May this year. Under the verdict, Trle was acquitted of charges for having killed prisoner of war Drago Stevanovic, by shooting him on his chest from an immediate vicinity on April 21, 1993
 
According to the charges, at that time Trle was member of the Third Battalion with the Third Tuzla Brigade of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Stevanovic was a member of the Second Majevica Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS.
 
The Cantonal Prosecution in Tuzla appealed the verdict due to violations of the criminal proceedings and Criminal Code, as well as wrongly and incompletely determined factual status, proposing to the Court to quash the verdict. The Defence of the indictee called on the Court to reject the appeal and confirm the first instance verdict.
 
The Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, FBiH, upheld the Cantonal Prosecution’s appeal, quashed the verdict and ordered a retrial.
 
“The first instance Court failed to list appropriate and acceptable reasons on the basis of which it determined that there was no evidence from which one could conclude that the indictee committed war crimes against prisoners of war,” the Supreme Court’s decision says.
 
The decision further says that the Tuzla Cantonal Court trusted the Defence witnesses and based its conclusions about decisive facts on those testimonies.  
 
“This Court considers that the first instance Court made a significant violation of the criminal proceedings provisions, because the verdict in question does not list the reasons related to the decisive facts,” the Supreme Court determined.