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Sentence Reduction Request by Dragan Djokic Rejected

Sud BiH

05 March 2010  The Appellate Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has rejected, as "groundless", the appeal filed by Dragan Djokic, who asked for a reduction of his twelve-year sentence for crimes against civilians, handed down in Croatia.

"After having considered the decision on the criminal legal sanction, the Chamber has determined that the prison sentence is fully adequate to the gravity of the crime and the circumstances under which the crime was committed, as well as the level of criminal responsibility and personality of the indictee," the decision rendered by the Appellate Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina says.

At the end of February Djokic asked the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to reduce the 12-year sentence handed down by the County Court in Sisak, Republic of Croatia, for crimes committed in Ravno Rasce.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina objected to Djokic's appeal, saying that it was "groundless".  

In 2006 Djokic was found guilty, as a member of paramilitary formations with the Republic of Serbian Krajina Army, of having "forcibly taken" Djuro Vucicevic out of his house on August 9, 1991 and taken him to a location near Dernovac Banski, where he "fired a bullet at his head, shooting from a close distance".

The Republic of Serbian Krajina was founded on Croatian territories that were controlled by Serbian authorities on April 1, 1991. It was abolished in 1995.

In late 2009 Djokic filed a request to serve his sentence in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to be close to his family in the Novi Grad area. The State Court accepted his request, confirming the sentence pronounced by the Croatian judiciary.

After that, the convict's Defence filed an appeal, asking for a reduction of the sentence because Djokic "is a father of two, who has no previous criminal record and 18 years have passed since the crime was committed".   

The Chamber determined that the passage of time, the convict's age and Djokic's good behaviour "are not of the required quality" to be considered as mitigating circumstances and affect the sentence.

"The circumstances which can affect the sentence were correctly assessed. The first instance Chamber correctly used its discretionary rights when it assessed the circumstances, determining that when taken together they justify the sentence," the Appellate Chamber's decision says.