The trial of Slobodan Peković, a Montenegrin citizen accused of war crimes against the civilian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, continued last week at the Higher Court in Podgorica, with the reading of two witness statements.
He is charged with having killed Muj and Emina Šabanović, and raped a Bosniak woman, as a soldier of the Army of Republika Srpska, in the village of Hum near Foča in June 1992.
"Peković denied guilt, stating that on the day of the murder of Mujo and Emina Šabanović, he was not in the village of Hum, but in Plužine, where - as he claims - he fought with Obren Gojković and spent the entire day in the police station. However, the material evidence presented shows that there is no record of crossings at the Šćepan Polje border crossing for 1992, nor was any data found in the Nikšić Security Center (Plužine Police Station) about the aforementioned incident, including misdemeanor reports or daily bulletins for that period, since such data is kept for only five years," the Human Rights Action (HRA) reminds in a statement.
The court read two witness statements regarding the murders of Mujo and Emina Šabanović.
The first is the testimony of Mirsad Šabanović, who did not respond to the court's summons to testify, and the court has no mechanisms to ensure his presence because he is a foreign citizen residing in BiH. He stated that he did not know Peković, but that he had heard that he was responsible for the murders, which is why the defense challenged the credibility of the testimony because it was based on circumstantial evidence.
The statement of Ramiza Grcić, who died in 2021, was also read. She stated that, due to the attack on the village of Hum, she hid in a nearby forest from where she saw soldiers taking Emina Šabanović out of her house, hitting her all over her body with a shovel and throwing her over thorns, then dragging her by the hair, causing her headscarf to fall off, and they dragged her unconscious to Mujo Šabanović's house. After some time, she saw that the house was on fire. Ramiza claimed that she recognized Peković among the soldiers because he had taken off his sock and because she had known him well from before. The defense also objected to this statement, stating that the witness could not be cross-examined and that she remained "inconclusive" regarding some crucial facts.
In the part of the proceedings relating to the rape of protected witness A1, the court rejected several proposals from the prosecution and the injured party's attorney, HRA writes.
The proposal to engage a psychiatric expert to provide an opinion on how the subjective perception of the victim can influence the description of the attacker in cases of sexual violence and war crimes was rejected. The request of the attorney of the injured party A1, lawyer Dalibor Tomović, for a neuropsychiatric expert examination, which was supposed to serve as evidence of the intensity of mental suffering and damage suffered from 2017 to the present, in order to determine the amount of the injured party's property-legal claim, was also rejected. The proposed expert was a doctor from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who examined the injured party in 2017 and then determined permanent psychological consequences caused by the trauma of rape.
The court rejected the request, stating that the expert opinion would delay the proceedings. In response, the injured party's attorney recalled that back in 2023, he had proposed that the expert opinion be conducted by a neuropsychiatrist from Montenegro or through a commission from the Faculty of Medicine, citing the complexity of the case. He also emphasized that it would be appropriate to decide on the property claim within the framework of criminal proceedings, because in civil proceedings it would be necessary to reveal the identity of the protected witness A1.
This proposal was also supported by special prosecutor Tanja Čolan Deretić, and the court announced that it would rule on it at the next hearing.
Finally, the defense proposed that a chemical expert examination be conducted to determine whether the defendant had changed his hair color in the meantime, given that witnesses describe him as blond, while he is now dark-haired. Prosecutor Čolan Deretić opposed this proposal, stating that observations about physical appearance are subjective and that it was for this reason that she had previously proposed a psychiatric expert examination on the victim's perception of the attacker - which the court had previously rejected. However, the presiding judge in this case, Nada Rabrenović, decided to rule on this request at the next hearing, on June 27 at 12:30 p.m.
HRA points out that this is the first case in the Montenegrin judiciary related to wartime sexual violence, in which the victim has the status of a protected witness.
"This means that it is also a test for the Montenegrin judiciary in how it will process rape as a war crime, which the Hague Tribunal has well-foundedly treated as a means of war and a form of torture in several complex cases. It is expected that domestic courts will demonstrate the ability to take into account and apply international humanitarian law standards for the protection of victims," the statement reads.
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