Sarajevo Court Acquits Serbs of Killing Family

“The chamber has found that the Bosnian state prosecution’s theses were in the sphere of assumptions with no firm evidence, and concluded that the prosecution did not manage to prove the defendants’ responsibility for crimes against humanity,” said presiding judge Zeljka Marenic.

Radakovic and Pejic had been accused of going to Tukovi on June 13, 1992, when one of the defendants killed three members of the Ecimovic family in one house, then both of them opened fire in a second house, killing two more members of the family.

Radakovic is a former reservist policeman, while Pejic was a member of an unidentified military or police formation.

Judge Marenic said that the prosecution had not put forward a single witness to testify that there had been a widespread and systematic attack on the Prijedor municipality, apart from citing evidence from the Hague Tribunal.

She said that the only fact determined by the court was that Tomo, Marija, Katarina, Nikola and Cecilija Ecimovic were killed on June 13, 1992.

Marenic said testimony by a witness who said he drove the defendants to the Ecimovic family house and waited for them in the car was insufficient to establish guilt.

The verdict can be appealed.