Bosnia Asks Serbia to Prosecute Wartime Rape, Murder Suspect

“In the case of Novak Stjepanovic, a request was sent for the Republic of Serbia to take over the criminal prosecution, but so far we have not received any feedback on it,” the Bosnian state court told BIRN on Thursday.

At a hearing in December 2018, at which former Bosnian Serb soldier Stjepanovic was scheduled to enter a plea to charges of raping and sexually abusing a Bosniak woman in the Bratunac area in June 1992, the state prosecution said it would ask for Serbia to take over the case.

Stjepanovic, who is a Serbian citizen and lives in Ljubovija in Serbia, did not attend the hearing.

“A warrant for the accused was not issued because there was no proposal from the prosecutor’s office to do that,” the state court said.

The indictment alleges that in June 1992, after the victim was forcibly taken from a mine in Sase, where Bosniak civilians were being illegally detained, and brought to Bratunac, Stjepanovic threatened her life and raped and sexually abused her.

Stjepanovic is also charged with taking part in the capture of 14 Bosniak civilians in the Bratunac municipality on May 20, 1992, along with four other Bosnian Serb Army soldiers.

He is accused of harassing the captured civilians, taking their money, and taking part in shooting them together with other soldiers from the group. Seven of the civilians were killed.