Former Bosnian Serb Army soldiers Bosko Peulic , Petar Duric and Davor Peulic pleaded not guilty to committing war crimes against Croat prisoners of war and civilians in the Travnik and Skender Vakuf areas in 1992.
In the second report in BIRN’s Forgotten Victims series about the Bosnian war, relatives of elderly Croats killed in the village of Susanj in 1993 demand to know why the investigation into the crime has not resulted in any indictments.
The Bosnian court awarded Abduladhim Maktouf, an Iraqi fighter convicted of war crimes during the 1992-95 conflict, 36,600 euros in compensation because he was in jail for two years longer than his sentence.
Mirsad Hodzic, also known as Abu Dzafer, a former member of the Bosnian Army’s El Mujahid detachment, is accused of abducting and torturing three Croat civilians in Travnik in 1993.
The state prosecution filed an indictment against Hodzic on Friday, accusing him of abducting three Croat civilians and threatening them with weapons in the Travnik area in October 1993 in order to exchange them for captured members of the El Mujahid Ddetachment.
The cantonal court in Travnik sentenced Bruno Saric, a former member of the Croatian Defence Council, to four years in prison for seizing a man who was never seen alive again afterwards.
The Cantonal prosecution in Travnik requested that Bruno Saric be found guilty of war crimes in Travnik. The defense called for a not guilty verdict. The pronouncement of the verdict is scheduled for April 7.
Abduladhim Maktouf, an Iraqi who fought in a Bosnian Army mujahideen unit during the conflict, had his sentence for illegally detaining Croat civilians reduced from five years to three.
Testifying before the cantonal court in Novi Travnik, prosecution witness Edib Sojtaric said he watched the abduction of his former neighbour Aleksa Kostres with his neighbours wife. Sojtaric said Kostres was abducted by Croatian Defence Council members, including the defendant, Bruno Saric.
Abduladhim Maktoufs defense attorney requested that the appellate chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina reduce Maktoufs sentence from five years to one year in prison.
At todays hearing of the Bruno Saric trial at the Cantonal Court in Novi Travnik, defense witnesses said that Aleksa Kostres was abducted by members of the Croatian Defence Council from Herzegovina.