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Lazarevic et al: Verdict due on September 29

Lazarevic i ostali

23 September 2008  Following the presentation of closing arguments in the case against Lazarevic et al, the Trial Chamber schedules the announcement of the verdict at the begining of next week.

After all the parties presented their closing arguments, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced that it would pronounce a verdict against the indictees, who are charged with crimes committed in Zvornik, on Monday, September 29.

In the course of presenting their closing arguments, the Defence teams of the four indictees, who are charged with crimes in detention camps in the Zvornik area, presented some joint statements, referring to all indictees and tackled specific counts in the indictment, calling for a verdict of release in the case of their clients.

The Prosecution charges Sreten Lazarevic, Dragan Stanojevic, Mile Markovic and Slobodan Ostojic with having participated in the detention and beating of civilians, who were detained in the prison, offence court and "Novi izvor" buildings in Zvornik.

The indictment alleges that the four men were members of reserve police forces in Zvornik. Sreten Lazarevic was allegedly a manager of the detention camp in which civilians were held, while Stanojevic, Markovic and Ostojic were guards.

Milos Peric, Defence attorney of Stanojevic, presented the Defence's request to try its clients according to the Criminal Code of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRY, which was in force when the alleged crimes were committed, adding that this Code was "more favourable for the indictees as it foresees less severe sentences".

The Defence of indictee Lazarevic presented a joint strategy pertaining to "the status of the persons, who were detained in those buildings".

More specifically, the Defence presented a number of pieces of material evidence, which show that all captured persons were "members of the Bosnian Army, which means that they could not be treated as civilians, but prisoners of war".

Finally, Miodrag Stojanovic, Defence attorney of Slobodan Ostojic, said that "the indictees' behaviour does not fulfill the criteria needed for pronouncing them guilty of having committed torture".

"The Prosecution has not proved that at least one of the indictees had an intention to intimidate or punish someone, or that one of them had a goal which could be achieved by causing suffering to other people, which presents an important element of the definition of torture. In addition, the level of suffering of the injured parties was not high enough to justify this qualification," Stanojevic explained.

In the course of their presentations the Defence of Dragan Stanojevic and Mile Markovic tackled "the issue of pretentious and contradictory statements given by Prosecution witnesses", claiming that "those people probably had some motive for giving false statements".

"These people here, the guards, they are just ordinary, good people. But they did not have the courage or chance to fight the evil paramilitary groups, which marauded Zvornik in the course of 1992," Peric said.