Ostojic Trial Begins Again, Defense Demands Examination of All Witnesses

The district prosecution has charged Zarije Ostojic, a former member of reserve police forces with a special unit of the public safety station in Vlasenica, with participating in the physical abuse of civilians held in the Susica detention camp in the municipality of Vlasenica in 1992.

At today’s hearing, prosecutor Tarik Crnkic said the examination of six witnesses and one expert witness was proposed in the indictment, but he said he gave up the examination of one of those witnesses.

“The prosecution emphasizes that the witnesses should not be invited to testify again, because they have testified several times,” Crnkic said.

Defense attorney Petko Pavlovic said he stuck to his proposal to examine all of the witnesses again. He said he had read all of the testimony, but didn’t know whether all of the witnesses were examined before the trial chamber.

The chamber decided to invite three prosecution witnesses to the next hearing, scheduled for December 14.

The trial of Ostojic began in 2009, and has been renewed several times. A long break also occurred during the course of the trial. In September 2015, a new defense attorney was appointed to represent Ostojic.