Bosnian Serb Ex-Policeman Pleads Not Guilty to Bosniaks’ Murders
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Vlasenica. Photo: BIRN BiH
Predrag Bastah told the Bosnian state court on Thursday he was innocent of involvement in the killings of 37 Bosniak civilians at Mracni Dol in the Vlasenica municipality during the war.
“Your honour, I am not guilty,” Bastah told the presiding judge as he entered his plea.
The indictment charges Bastah with committing crimes against humanity.
He is accused, in his capacity as a reservist officer with the police’s Public Security Station in Vlasenica, of participating in the Bosniaks’ murder alongside two Bosnian Serb Army soldiers as part of a widespread and systematic attack on the non-Serb population in the municipality.
The prosecution claims that Bastah guarded the site where the victims were shot and then used a weapon to direct them there.
The victims’ bodies were found and exhumed at the Mracni Dol site in 2000, according to the prosecution.
Bastah was previously sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2011 for his involvement in the murders of civilians, unlawful detention, forcible disappearances and resettlement of the local population in the Vlasenica area.
