Sentence against Petar Mitrovic Reduced

The Court partially upheld an appeal filed by Mitrovic’s Defence. As announced by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the verdict was therefore revised in terms of the legal classification according to which Mitrovic was sentenced for having assisted in the commission of genocide according to the Criminal Code of the former Yugoslavia.

A renewed trial against Mitrovic was held before the Appellate Chamber, as, in October last year the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH, quashed a second instance verdict pronounced by the Court of BiH after having determined that the European Human Rights Convention had been violated.

Mitrovic, former member of the Second Special Police Squad from Sekovici, was sentenced to 28 years in prison, in 2009, for having participated in the shooting of about 1,000 Bosniaks in the Agricultural Co-operative in Kravica, Bratunac municipality.

However, he was released to liberty on November 18, 2013, after the Constitutional Court quashed the verdict due to the wrong application of the Criminal Code of BiH.

In January this year the Appellate Chamber held a session at which it considered the Defence’s appeal related to the application of the law and duration of sentence.

The Court of BiH is due to pronounce verdicts against five more former members of the Sekovici Special Police Squad, whose second instance verdicts for assistance in the commission of genocide were quashed as well due to the wrong application of the law.