Persons indicted

Rank(s) of person(s) indicted

lower military

Indictment date

04/30/2010

Case stage

Case status: Appellate proceedings under way

Duration of proceedings since trial commencement

7 years 10 months

Witnesses examined

41

Date and outcome of the first instance verdict

02/22/2013

First intance judgment / years in prison:
AB, AĐ: 20
AV, AD: 10
AG, AE: 5
AA: 2
XX1 deceased prior to the completion of trial

Date and outcome of decision on appeal

06/16/2014

Decision on appeal: Lower court's judgment abolished, new trial ordered.
AA deceased prior to the completion of appellate proceedings

Date and outcome of verdict in new trial

06/16/2016

Upon repeated proceedings in 2015, all defendants were released due to lack of evidence. The War Crimes Prosecutor appealed the judgment on the grounds of erroneous assessment of evidence in repeated proceedings, i.e. of insufficient clarification of reasons behind the court's decision. The Prosecutor therefore proposed that the Appellate Court should:
a) Re-examine the rape victims and a military expert witness;
b) Alter the acquitting judgment; and
c) Declare all defendants guilty of war crime against civilian population.

At its hearing of 27 April 2016, the Appellate Court examined a rape victim in protected witness capacity. The victim was heard in a closed session. The remaining two rape victims were also supposed to testify, but were not able to appear for personal reasons. They will therefore be heard at a subsequent hearing, due to be scheduled at a later point.

Criminal offence

war crime against civilian population under art. 142 (1) re art. 22 (co-perpetration) of the SFRY Criminal Act.

Background facts

Background facts:
According to the indictment allegations, all of the accused were members of the paramilitary unit known as 'Simo's Chetniks', which was closely linked to the Bosnian Serbs' army and entirely composed of Serbs from Serbia and BH. On 12 July 1992, some of the accused, joined by other soldiers of their unit, entered village Skočić in the area of Zvornik, BH, where they demolished the local mosque and killed 27 Roma Muslim civilians, mostly women and children (one of the children survived the shooting). Thereafter, some of the accused held three young Roma females under custody and subjected them to sexual abuse and other inhumane acts in the course of the next seven months.

Procedural remarks

In the aftermath of the Appellate Court's decision of 14 May 2015, whereby the first instance judgment was abolished as insufficiently clear, a new trial is under way.
Prior to the commencement of new trial, the War Crimes Prosecutor partly amended his indictment in order to enhance the accuracy of his charges against the accused.