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The supreme court in Bosnia’s Serb-led entity acquitted Ramadan Dervisevic of murdering a Serb civilian in Srebrenica in 1992 because the statute of limitations had expired.
Republika Srpska’s highest court freed Dervisevic on Wednesday, acquitting him of killing a Bosnian Serb man in May 1992 in Ratkovici near Srebrenica and injuring his brother.
“This is a final verdict and it cannot be appealed,” said Dervisevic’s lawyer, Lejla Covic.
Dervisevic had previously been sentenced to seven years in prison for war crimes by the district court in Bijeljina.
But his defence appealed, claiming that the prosecution in Bijeljina did not prove that Dervisevic committed a war crime because it did not make a concrete link between the murder and the conflict.
“The court accepted our appeal and said there was no correlation between the armed conflict and this crime,” said Covic.
After the first conviction, the prosecution changed the classification of the offence from war crime to murder.
The defence objected on the grounds that the 15-year statute of limitations on murder offences had expired, but the supreme court rejected this and again sentenced Dervisevic to seven years in prison for murder.
However, Bosnia’s constitutional court accepted an appeal from Dervisevic’s defence, and on Wednesday the Republika Srpska supreme court changed its decision and acquitted him.
