Shorter Sentence Requested in Mladen Milic Case

The Bosnian prosecution asked the Appeals chamber to use the Criminal code of the former Yugoslavia instead of the Criminal code of BiH for the charges of war crimes against civilians.

Defense attorney Simo Tosic said he proposed that the sentence be handed down in accordance with the provisions laid out in the criminal code of the former Yugoslavia. He also called upon the court to take into account the amount of time the defendant had already spent in custody.

“If the court pronounces a sentence in accordance with the old law, the conditions for releasing him to liberty would be met,” Tosic said.

The state prosecution said the defense’s proposal should be rejected as unfounded.

Milic was sentenced to eight years in prison for having assisted one person in abducting the three Grgic brothers from Nenad Tesic’s house on June 6, 1992. He then participated in transporting them to a municipal building, where two brothers were killed and one was wounded. The state court handed down the second instance verdict in July 2012.

However, due to a decision issued by the European Court for Human Rights which called for the application of a more favourable law, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina repealed the second instance verdict against Milic.

Milic addressed the appeals chamber, saying he was following orders and that he didn’t know what would happen to the Grgic brothers.

“Although I did not personally kill anyone, I feel guilt, because, being a driver, I was tasked with driving the victims to the location where they were killed,” Milic said.

The appeals chamber will render a decision concerning the sentence at a later stage.