It took the High Court in Podgorica fifteen months to confirm the indictment of the Special State Prosecutor's Office against Nikšić police officer Zoran Gašović, due to the existence of reasonable suspicion that he committed the criminal offense of crimes against humanity.
The SDT states in a statement that the panel of the Higher Court in Podgorica, by decision Kvso No. 15/24, dated September 15 this year, confirmed the indictment Kt-S No. 438/23, dated June 19 last year.
"The subject of the indictment is that the accused, as a member of the Bosnian Serb civilian police, during the non-international armed conflict between the Army of Republika Srpska and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the period from early May to mid-December 1992, in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Hadžići, in violation of the rules of international law, as part of a wider and systematic attack directed against the civilian population, participated in the commission of murders and carried out enslavement, forced displacement, torture, persecution on religious and ethnic grounds, unlawful imprisonment of persons and other similar inhumane acts, which caused them severe suffering and seriously endangered their health," the SDT statement reads.
The confirmation of the indictment came after the Court of Appeal of Montenegro accepted the appeal of the Special State Prosecutor's Office and reversed the decision of the Higher Court in Podgorica, when in the war crimes case against the defendant Gašović, part of the evidentiary material that came from the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals was excluded from the case file.
The SDT then announced that the decision of the Higher Court in Podgorica, issued on April 15 of this year, was modified, as the Court of Appeal rejected as unfounded the proposal of the defense attorney of the defendant Gašović to exclude from the case file as legally invalid evidence: minutes - statements, minutes of the hearing of citizens, minutes of the hearing of witnesses, statements, official notes and transcripts of the hearing of witnesses, which were collected by the competent authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This evidence, which the High Court removed from the case file by a decision, was submitted to the Special State Prosecutor's Office by the Prosecutor's Office of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.
Based on this evidence, among other things, an indictment was filed by the Special State Prosecutor's Office.
According to the verdict of the Hague Tribunal, war crimes were committed in Hadžići, during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, where around 700 people were forcibly held for months in camps in a sports hall and garage.
According to the SDT indictment, Gašović participated in the mass persecution of Bosniaks and Croats from Hadžići, the imprisonment of people in a concentration camp and the deportation of around 200 Bosniaks to the Lukavica barracks, of whom around 60 were shot.
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