Andrun: Another visit to Gabela
30 June 2008 The Appellate Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina wants to visit the Gabela detention camp, together with a Prosecution witness, who is supposed to identify the place where he stayed.
Towards the end of the presentation of evidence at
the retrial of Nikola Andrun, the Appellate Chamber of the State Court has
announced that it will conduct a repeated crimes scene inspection and a "partial
reconstruction of events" in the Gabela detention camp on July 3.
The site inspection will be conducted
by Chamber members and witness Mirza Colakovic, who will be asked to identify
the building in which he was allegedly detained.
Mirza Colakovic appeared as the first
Prosecution witness at the trial of Nikola Andrun, who was sentenced, by a first
instance verdict announced by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in December
2006, to 13 years imprisonment for having participated, as deputy commander of
the Gabela detention camp, in murder, torture and inhumane treatment of detained
civilians in 1993.
Upholding the appeals, filed by both
parties, the Appellate Chamber revoked the first instance verdict and ordered a
retrial to be conducted. This witness was examined again in the course of the
retrial. During the course of his testimony at the first instance trial and the
retrial, Colakovic was not able to recognise the room in which he stayed during
his detention in Gabela, when he was shown a video recording made during the
first reconstruction of events, conducted in Gabela.
"We agreed that the
video recording made in Gabela was not fully correct. We have therefore decided
to go to the field again," Appellate Chamber Chairwoman Azra Miletic said but
she did not mention why the recording was not considered as "fully correct."
At this hearing, the Defence provided more
details concerning its proposal to introduce ten new pieces of material evidence
and examine five more witnesses, two of whom testified in the course of the
first instance trial already.
Once again the Prosecution said it
objected this proposal.
The Appellate Chamber will announce its
decision concerning the proposal at the next hearing, scheduled for July 4.
Justice Report is a
specialist reporting agency focusing on war crimes trials taking place before
local courts; development of the local legal system; and efforts to come to
terms with the past.
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The opinions expressed in Balkan Insight are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
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