Yesterday, after 11 months, the trial of Slobodan Peković, accused of war crimes against the civilian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, continued, the Action for Human Rights (HRA) announced.
"He is accused of killing two people and raping a Bosniak woman in Foča in 1992 as a soldier of the Army of Republika Srpska. This is the first trial in Montenegro that includes accusations of sexual violence committed during the war. The victim of that violence has the status of a protected witness. Action for Human Rights regularly monitors the trial," the HRA press release points out.
They added that the previous hearing of the main hearing was held on May 31, 2023.
"Since then, the trial has been postponed five times - due to the absence of the defense counsel (three times), due to the absence of a member of the judicial panel (once) and due to the inability of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to provide the hearing of witnesses (once). As the witnesses are located in BiH, due to the economy of the procedure , their hearing is conducted via video link," the announcement reads.
They recalled that the special prosecutor Tanja Čolan Deretić requested an expert examination of the defense attorney's medical documentation due to frequent delays.
"In order to assess whether he will be able to follow the course of the trial in the near future. At yesterday's trial, by the decision of the President of the High Court in Podgorica, Peković was assigned an ex officio lawyer, who will continue to act together with his chosen lawyer." they added.
HRA emphasized that the son of murdered Emina Šabanović, Meho, was heard at the trial. He explained that he was not an eyewitness to the murder, but that the direct witness was his nana Begija, who knew Peković from before.
However, she was allegedly murdered in 1994 in a gruesome way, by being burned in a hut with five other women.
"Everything that my grandmother saw, she told my aunt, Ramiza Grcic, and then my aunt passed it on to me. Ramiza's testimony exists, she testified about it before her death (during the corona virus)," added Šabanović.
He said that he was very close to Peković, that he knew him well, because they were together in a hunting company, and that they had lunch and slept in the same room several times.
As HRA said, Šabanović claims that during the event in question Peković was looking for him, his brother and weapons, and that he killed Emina after she did not tell him where they were.
Answering the defense's question, the witness could not physically describe Slobodan Peković. He joined the prosecution and filed a property claim.
The defense lawyer, Ratko Pantović, requested the cancellation of the defendant's custody, referring to the standard of the European Court of Human Rights "that the grounds for detention weaken with the passage of time", concluding that in this case he "practically disappeared", because Peković has been in custody for two years and six months.
"As a reason for the cancellation of custody, he cited the poor health of the defendant, who in the meantime, suffered two heart attacks and an operation in prison, and whose heart now "functions only 10%". movement and periodic reporting, because Peković's travel documents have already been confiscated. However, the proposal to cancel detention was rejected, because according to the Court, the reasons for which he was detained still exist - the risk of escape and the amount of the threatened sentence," the HRA statement added. .
The injured party's attorney, lawyer Dalibor Tomović, demanded that the court determine the implementation of an expert opinion on physical and mental pain and reduced general life activity of the injured person by a neuropsychiatrist in BiH, so that this finding would provide a basis for deciding on the property-legal claim.
According to the HRA, this request was joined by the representative of the prosecution. The court will decide on this request during the criminal proceedings.
Judge Nada Rabrenović scheduled the next hearings for May 28, June 11, and July 5, 2024, in order to efficiently end the trial.
"Tomović represents the injured party within the Actions for Human Rights project, which is part of the regional project "European Union Support for Confidence Building in the Western Balkans" funded by the European Union and implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)," HRA concluded.
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