Person: Huric Esef

Ibro Merkez, a police chief in the Bosnian town of Gorazde during wartime, was sentenced to two years in prison for unlawfully detaining and mistreating Serb civilians in 1992. The state court in Sarajevo on Friday found Ibro Merkez guilty, as the former chief of the police’s Public Security Station in Gorazde, of unlawfully detaining Serb civilians and treating them in inhumanely manner between the middle of July 1992 and August 4 the same year.

The defence lawyer for Ibro Merkez, a wartime police commander in Gorazde on trial for involvement in unlawfully detaining, abusing and killing Serb civilians in 1992, said he should be acquitted.

The prosecution urged the Bosnian state court to convict former local police chiefs Ibro Merkez, Predrag Bogunic and Esef Huric of unlawfully detaining, abusing and killing Serb civilians in Gorazde in 1992 and 1993. In its closing statement at the state court in Sarajevo on Thursday, the prosecution said it had proved that former police officers Ibro Merkez, Predrag Bogunic and Esef Huric were guilty of unlawful detention, murder, inhumane treatment and the deprivation of the right to a fair trial between July 1992 and February 1993.