FARCE DIRECTED BY MINISTER OF JUSTICE

Trial in Zvornik

AIM Bijeljina, 19 May, 1997

In Zvornik, towards the end of April, seven Muslims were convicted for murder of four Serb civilians in the village of Krusev Do, on the territory of Srebrenica municipality. Three of them - Nedzad Hasic, Ahmo Harbas and Behudin Avdic, accoring to the decision of the Great Criminal Tribunal of the Municipal Court in Zvornik, chaired by President of the Tribunal, Petar Stjepanovic, were sentenced to twenty years in jail each.

In the explanation of the sentence, it is stated that it was proved that in Krusev Do these three men killed four Serbs from Milici - Djordje Petrovic, Nikola Modrakovic, Momcilo Ristanovic and Vlajko Zekic. It is also stated that after the murder they cut the bodies of the victims, burnt and buried them.

The other four indicted, Samir Avdic, Enver Harbas, Vahbet Avdic and Muharem Hasanovic, were sentenced to a year in prison because of unauthorized possession and carrying of a large amount of firearms and explosive devices on the territory of Republica Srpska. Due to lack of evidence, the tribunal decided to relaese Samir Avdic and Nedzad Hasic of charges that they killed the eighth member of the group, Munib Mustafic in Poljanice in August 1995.

After the end of the trial in Zvornik, an avalanche of accusations started arriving from all sides. Co-chairman of the Council of Ministers of B&H, Haris Silajdzic, characterized the trial as mockery of justice and called it a farce. Carl Bildt's assistant, Michael Steiner, addressed a letter to Prime Minister of RS, Gojko Klickovic, complaining because attorneys from B&H Federation had not been allowed to defend the indicted. Silajdzic accused the attorneys from RS who were assigned to defend the indicted, that they had behaved as prosecutors, not like defenders. The UN mission in B&H also appealed to the judiciary of the Serb entity to order urgent repetition of the trial to the three first three indicted men in the Zvornik proceedings. The reasons they gave for this were impossibility of the indicted to choose their own attorneys of the defence, absence of cross examination of witnesses and irregular registration in the court register. The press of B&H Federation did not remain idle either, and characterized the trial as court martial and an attempt to minimize Serb responsibility for crimes in Srebrenica.

The Zvornik trial will be remembered as a "legal case" in which, according to the decision of the Minister of justice to forbid defenders of the indicted from the Federation, Bakir Pasic, Mensur Radoncic and Mirsa Muharemagic, to defend their clients and allow them just to be present as some kind of assistants. Commenting on this decision of minister Branko Petric, Vaso Eric, President of the Municipal Court in Zvornik, says: "This is a matter of two separate legal systems and our judiciary acted independently and autonomously. As concerning denial of the rights to attorneys from Tuzla to directly defend the indicted, it is the matter of the lack of an agreement on reciprocity with the other entity. The attorneys from Tuzla were allowed to visit the indicted in the jail in Bijeljina, to prepare their defence. They were correctly treated in RS, as they themselves stressed in their media after these visits".

President of the Great Criminal Tribunal of the Municipal Court in Zvornik, Petar Stojanovic, who pronounced the sentence to the indicted, complains that certain media from B&H Federation and the world have tried to make a farce and buffoonery of this trial and to belittle the judiciuary in RS. "Certain representatives of the international community exerted direct pressure on us to pronounce time sentences, because death penalty is prescribed for such crimes", says Stjepanovic. "They tried to impute it to us that this was a political trial. We worked pursuant the Law on Criminal Proceedings, respecting what has been prescribed in Dayton, the experience of the international jurisprudence and our judiciary", claims judge Stjepanovic.

Asked to comment on the Minister's interference in the business of the court, judge Stjepanovic says: "We were obliged to obey the decision of the minister. After we had received it, we nominated attorneys of the defence from RS: Janko Nikolic and Milan Micic from Zvornik, and Biljana Simeunovic and Nadezda Milosevic from Bijeljina".

Nadezda Milosevic from Bijeljina, attorney of the defence of the second indicted Ahmo Harbas, says: "I believe that the court proceedings were normally conducted pursuant the Criminal Law of RS. Let me remind you that in every jail there is a list of lawyers in RS and the indicted could have chosen anyone they pleased. As concerning the attorneys from Tuzla, they contacted the indicted and could have defended the indicted through us, in the role of assistants. They nevertheless decided to leave the trial as an ultimatum, because of the status determined for them by the Ministry of Justice of RS. There was absolutely no haste in the trial or during the investigation. There were no eye-witnesses of the crime, so it is understandable that witnesses - relatives of the murdered, were questioned for a short time. The indicted had given statements during the investigation and at the main hearing, and they presented their defence at the trial". Attorney Milosevic believes that the defence of the indicted acted according to principles of morality and lawyers' ethics. He does not think that the lawyers from Tuzla were deprived of anything. "We were in contact with them too and they told us that they had prepared the entire defence for the indicted". Durring the trial we acted as we would have in case of any citizen of RS. The procedure has been completed. The verdict was made public. I believe that the lawyers from Tuzla have just done harm to the indicted by the way they acted and by leaving the trial, in the attempt to politicize the case", he says.

Attorney Biljana Simeunovic, tries to explain the decision of the minister by the fact that out attorneys cannot defend the indicted in Serbia without a special permit of the ministry. She claims that this is not possible in the Federation either, and that it depends on each separate case. She quotes as an argument that the law on Criminal Proceedings of RS does not prescribe the possibility of attorneys from B&H Federation defending indicted persons on the territory of RS.

"If we don't have the right to represent the indicted over there, it is only logical that they should not have the right to do it here. The attorneys from Tuzla wished to directly question the indicted and they were denied to do that. If they had sincerely wished to defend their clients, they would have remained at the trial and questioned them through us. However, they walked out from the trial in protest", says attorney Biljana Simeunovic.

To a question whether they would represent anybody at a trial in B&H Federation, they say that it is a metter of personal evaluation and depends on each case, but also that it is primarily the question of personal security.

The Zvornik case is certainly a reflection of global relations on the level of Bosnia & Herzegovina. The reality becomes complicated even when there is hardly any reason for it. The decision of the minister of justice cast a shadow on the authority of the court, and it will still have to be discussed.

Ljubo Ljubojevic