Nearly ten years after the first arrests of the suspects, the First Instance Panel of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina pronounced a verdict in the Zecovi war crimes case convicting five out of 11 suspects to a total of 59 years in prison.
Dusan Milunic was sentenced to 12 years in prison, Zoran Stojnic to eight years, Zoran Milunic to 14 years, Ljubisa Cetic to five years and Ilija Zoric to 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity, i.e. for crimes that include murder, persecution, rape, torture, imprisonment in concentration camps.
The rest of the eleven defendants were acquitted.
Furthermore, all the accused were acquitted of the existence of a joint criminal enterprise.
Interestingly, none of the defendants appeared at the sentencing.
The defence of the first defendant, Milunic, said that he was recently summoned as a suspect in another case and that his phone had been switched off since that moment.
The defence of the other defendants said that one of them had medical documentation for which he needed to go to the hospital and that the others were not obliged to come. Also, some lawyers said they did not know where their clients were.
At least 150 Bosniak civilians were killed in the Zecovi area – 69 in the village, 20 civilians in other locations, 30 Bosniak civilians in the Prijedor municipality area camps, and the rest were killed in other locations and under other circumstances after persecution, the indictment from 2014 states, as well as that the inhabitants of Zecovi were held in the “Keraterm”, “Omarska” and “Trnopolje” concentration camps.
Some of the victims’ families gathered in front of the Court Friday, holding photos of their loved ones.
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