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Savic: Clear Conscience

Momir Savic

19 February 2010  

Explaining its appeals to the first instance verdict against Momir Savic for crimes committed in the Visegrad area, the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina calls on the Appellate Chamber to increase the sentence, while the Defence says the verdict should be overturned and a retrial conducted.

"I guarantee on my life that I did not commit any of the crimes described in the indictment. My conscience is clear. It certainly never occurred to me to do something like that," Savic told the Trial Chamber.  

Momir Savic was sentenced by a first instance verdict pronounced by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to 18 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed in Visegrad municipality.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina said that most of the injured parties were civilians, adding that the sentence was not adequate, bearing in mind that Savic was charged with the death of 16 people.  

"The Court took into consideration, as a mitigating circumstance, the fact that the indictee is a family man and the father of a child. But, what happened to the injured parties and their families? The question is whether they will ever have families of their own?" Prosecutor Adnan Gulamovic said.

The indictee's Defence argued that the first instance verdict substantially violates the Criminal Proceedings Code and contains wrongly determined facts.

"At this trial the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina played a role in a good theater scenario, but the actors did not learn their lines well. The witnesses' statements are contradictory," Defence attorney Milan Romanic said.

By the first instance verdict, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found Savic, as Commander of the Third Company with the Visegrad Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, guilty of capturing, deporting, mistreating and killing civilians from Visegrad and the Rudo area.  

Savic was also found guilty of having raped a protected witness.  

"The whole thing was initiated by the War Victims's association led by Bakira Hasecic. It is not disputable that non-governmental organizations can investigate war crimes, but her informed letter speaks for itself. In this letter she said that Momir Savic's mother had died, so he would flee because there was nothing that would keep him in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It also said that he was a war criminal," Romanic said.

In its appeal the Defence said that a more favourable law, which was in effect when the crime was committed, should have been applied in the verdict instead of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted in 2003.  

"It was not possible for Savic to know that his actions were forbidden by international law. Only a few experts could have known this at the time. Savic should have been tried on the basis of the Law of the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRJ," Romanic said.

Defence attorney Dragan Medjovic said the first instance Trial Chamber applied "different standards" when it said that the witnesses were under stress and much time has passed, while it did not apply the same standards to the indictee when he testified for his Defence.   

Medjovic said the Defence's main goal was to make sure the facts and the truth were determined, adding that he "responsibly claims" his client had nothing to do with the committed crimes.  

Commenting the charge of rape, Medjovic said that the protected witness gave false testimony, because she had an emotional love affair with the indictee.


The Appellate Chamber will render a decision concerning the appeals at a later stage.