Belgrade court upholds verdict against Novaković for Bosniaks' deportation
The Court of Appeal in Belgrade dismissed the defence’s appeal as unfounded and upheld the first-instance verdict sentencing Jovan Novaković, former commander of the Moštanica unit of the Bratunac Territorial Defense (TO), to three years in prison for crimes committed in the village of Suha near Bratunac in May 1992.
As announced by the Court of Appeal in Belgrade, it was concluded that the first-instance court had provided sufficient, clear, and well-reasoned explanations regarding all facts relevant to the verdict, without any contradictions or ambiguities concerning decisive facts, Detektor reports.
Found guilty of forced displacement and attack
The Higher Court in Belgrade, in its first-instance ruling, found Novaković guilty of forcibly displacing the Bosniak population from the village of Suha on May 10, 1992. Together with a group of armed members of the Moštanica company and other armed members of the Bratunac Territorial Defense, they surrounded and then attacked Suha. During the attack, Novaković ordered Bosniak civilians to leave their homes, CE Report quotes FENA.
According to the verdict, he, together with other TO members, participated in removing around 300 civilians from their homes, while armed individuals used a megaphone to call on men hiding in the forest to surrender under the threat that they, as well as their wives and children, would be killed.
The ruling states that some of those hiding in the forest surrendered. In an effort to locate all civilians from Suha, Novaković threatened to kill them and their family members and ordered three witnesses to find and bring other members of their families, which they did. They then returned to the village, where TO members gathered detained residents in the village center, while Novaković himself found and forced six people out of a shelter where they had been hiding.
Indictment filed in 2015
As stated, Novaković threatened civilians not to attempt to escape, ordered them to form a column and move, and under escort by armed members of the Bratunac TO and himself, they were taken to the Bratunac football stadium, where they were held until buses arrived to deport women, the elderly, and children toward Kladanj.
According to the verdict, able-bodied men were taken to the “Vuk Karadžić” primary school. In this way, around 300 residents of Suha were unlawfully and without imperative military necessity forcibly displaced from their homes.
“Contrary to the defence’s appeal arguments, the effective prison sentence of this duration is proportionate to the severity of the criminal offense, the degree of criminal responsibility of the accused, the circumstances under which the crime was committed, the extent of harm to protected legal interests and the consequences caused. The imposed sentence represents a necessary measure of criminal-law protection that will fully achieve the purpose of punishment,” the Court of Appeal stated.
The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina filed an indictment against Novaković in 2015 for persecution in the Bratunac area. In the meantime, the Higher Court in Belgrade took over the prosecution, as previously reported by Detektor.
Photo: Detektor
