Bosnian Prosecution to Appeal Naser Oric Acquittal in May
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The state prosecution will present its appeal on May 8, asking the court to quash the acquittal and convict Naser Oric and his subordinate Sabahudin Muhic, or send the case for a retrial.
Oric’s lawyer Lejla Covic told BIRN that she will ask the judges to uphold the acquittal.
“I believe that the prosecutor’s office’s appeal is unfounded and I believe that the appeals chamber will confirm the acquittal,” said Covic.
The prosecution had alleged that Oric, who was a commander of Bosnian Army territorial defence units, and Muhic, his subordinate, killed three Serb captives in the villages of Zalazje, Lolici and Kunjerac in 1992.
But the court ruled in October last year that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Oric and Muhic carried out the killings.
“Justice has won,” Oric shouted as he left the court in Sarajevo.
Oric had previously been acquitted of war crimes in the Srebrenica area by the UN tribunal in The Hague.
The Sarajevo case was highly controversial because Oric is seen as a hero by many Bosniaks for his role in defending Srebrenica in the years before the 1995 massacres, while some Serbs have claimed that the charges against him should have been more severe.
Oric’s acquittal drew strong criticism from Bosnian Serbs and Serbian officials.
The Justice Ministry’s Centre for Research on War, War Crimes and Missing Persons in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity complained to Bosnian’s top judicial body, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, accusing nine judges and six prosecutors of having discriminated against Serbs in war crimes cases.
It claimed that the judges and prosecutors worked as military judges during the war, based on a decree from the wartime Bosnian presidency, and that that some of them were military judges in wartime prison camps where Serbs were detained.
Among those accused of bias by the Bosnian Serbs was judge Saban Maksumic, who was on the judging panel in the trial of Oric. The other two judges on the panel were Serbs.
The High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council responded by saying that it will request information about the wartime pasts of judges and prosecutors.
