BOSNIAN STATE COURT SET TO ANNOUNCE ITS VERDICT AGAINST ELEVEN SERBIAN WAR CRIMINALS CHARGED WITH GENOCIDE

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 29,2008) - The Bosnian State Court is set to announce its verdict against eleven Serbian war criminals accused of genocide committed in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica,during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia in what is being seen as a test case for the country’s justice system.

It is the first time a verdict for genocide could be handed down in Bosnia, in what is also the country’s biggest genocide trial.

The indictment charges former members of the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor's formations,Serbian war criminals Milos Stupar, Milenko Trifunovic, Petar Mitrovic, Brane Dzinic, Aleksandar Radovanovic, Slobodan Jakovljevic, Miladin Stevanovic, Velibor Maksimovic, Dragisa Zivanovic, Branislav Medan and Milovan Matic with having participated in the capture and mass murder of some 10,000 Bosnian civilians in Srebrenica, and in taking 1,000 Bosnian civilians to the Agricultural Cooperative warehouse in the eastern Bosnian village of Kravice, where they were mass murdered by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor on the evening of July 13, 1995.

The trial against the eleven Serbian war criminals began in May 2006. More then 100 witnesses and ten court experts have been examined during the course of regular and additional evidence presentation by both parties.

One of the witnesses was a Bosnian who survived the mass murder because he was shielded by the bodies of those Bosnian civilians who were mass murdered by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor in Kravice.

He remembered that the storage shed was completely full when the detained Bosnian civilians were brought in, and how one of them complained that he could not stand anywhere because the storage shed was full of people.

"The soldier pushed him with his foot. Then a burst of shots was heard, and the shooting started," the witness said.

"I closed my eyes and waited to be killed. All the men fell. I lay down. There was blood everywhere." Shooting and the explosions of bombs and grenade launchers lasted for around one hour, he said.

When the shooting quieted down, the witness continued lying on the floor among dead bodies, listening to yelling and laughter coming from the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor's soldiers standing outside the building.

"There was blood everywhere. I laid down on one of the dead men and put two dead bodies over me. I stayed like that for 24 hours," the witness said.

In its closing arguments, the Bosnian State Prosecution has called on the Trial Chamber to announce 11 Serbian war criminals guilty and sentence each of them to 45 years' imprisonment, which is the maximum imprisonment sentence prescribed by the Criminal Code of Bosnia.

"The Bosnian State Court should not hesitate to call the crime by its real name. What happened in Srebrenica was genocide. If a murder of 1,000 people and forcible resettlement of tens thousands of civilians, and a systematic approach to the commitment of those crimes, was not genocide, why do we then have all these theories, discussions and thesis that even a murder of one man can be considered as genocide?" the Bosnian State Prosecutor Ibro Bulic said, presenting his closing arguments.

The Defence teams of the eleven Serbian war criminals asked the Bosnian State Court to acquit the accused of all counts contained in the indictment, saying that the Prosecution had not managed to prove the allegations contained in the indictment, or that the genocide was committed in Srebrenica.

"The Defence does not deny that a crime did happen in Kravice but it denies that genocide was committed," Stojan Vasic, one of the attorneys said.

On July 12, 1995 the indictees guarded and controlled the road used by the buses to transport the detained Bosnian civilians who were deported from Srebrenica.

The indictment states that several thousands of detained Bosnian civilians were held in a meadow in Sandici and in its vicinity, in Bratunac municipality, before being transported to various locations, including the Agricultural Cooperative in the eastern Bosnian village of Kravice, and mass murdered by the genocidal Serbian fascist aggressor.
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