The Appellate Division Panel of Section I for War Crimes at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the criminal case against the accused Jovan Tintor, having held an open session, delivered a judgment dismissing the appeal filed by the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the appeals filed by the accused Jovan Tintor and his defense counsel are partly granted, so the judgment of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina No. S1 1 K 020821 16 Kri, of 30 August 2018, is modified in the convicting part, in terms of sentencing decision, in the manner that, by the application of the foregoing statutory provisions, and the provisions laid down in Articles 39, 42 and 48 of the CC BiH, the accused Jovan Tintor is now sentenced to 10 (ten) years of imprisonment for the criminal offense of Crimes against Humanity under Article 172(1)h), as read with Subparagraphs a), d), e), f), i) and k) of the CC BiH, which the trial judgment had found him guilty of. The time the accused spent in pre-trial custody, from 8 February 2016 onwards, shall be credited towards his prison sentence.
The rest of the trial judgment shall remain the same.
The trial judgment found the accused Jovan Tintor guilty that by the actions described under Sections 1-8 of the convicting part of the judgment he committed the criminal offense of Crimes against Humanity under Article 172(1)h), as read with Subparagraphs a), d), e), f), i) and k) of the CC BiH, all in conjunction with Article 180(1) of the same code, pursuant to which he was sentenced to 11 (eleven) years of imprisonment, with the time he spent in pre-trial custody, from 8 February 2016 onwards, being credited towards his sentence of imprisonment in accordance with Article 56(1) of the CC BiH. Pursuant to Article 284, Subparagraph c), of the CPC BiH, the trial judgment acquitted the accused of the charges that by the actions described in Count 2) of the indictment he committed the criminal offense of Crimes against Humanity under Article 172(1)h), as read with Subparagraph a) of the CC BiH, all in conjunction with Article 180(1) of the same code.
The Prosecutor duly filed an appeal from the trial judgment, in relation to the acquittal, on the grounds of incorrectly or incompletely established facts, and in relation to the conviction on the grounds of the sentencing decision, costs of proceedings, compensation claim and pronouncement of judgment, moving the Appellate Division Panel to grant the appeal in its entirety as well-founded, and modify the trial judgment, or revoke the challenged judgment and order a retrial before the Appellate Division Panel.
Defense counsel also filed an appeal from the trial judgment, in relation to the conviction, on all grounds provided in Article 296 of the CPC BiH, moving the Appellate Division Panel to grant the appeal, revoke the conviction due to the existence of absolutely essential violations of the criminal proceeding and the errors of law, and order a retrial before the Appellate Division Panel, and uphold the trial judgment in its acquitting part, or modify the challenged judgment by acquitting the accused of all charges.
The accused Jovan Tintor also filed an appeal from the challenged judgment, moving the Appellate Division Panel to acquit him of all charges.
Both the Prosecutor and the Defense filed responses to the submitted appeals, with the Prosecutor moving that defense counsel’s appeal be dismissed as ill-founded, and that the accused’s appeal be dismissed as inadmissible, for it does not contain all the mandatory sections required by law, while the defense moved that the Prosecutor’s appeal be dismissed as ill-founded.
At the Appellate Division Panel’s session held on 15 February 2019, the parties and defense counsel stood by their written submissions, whose content the counsel additionally explained in her oral presentation, with which the accused concurred while maintaining the arguments presented in his own appeal, as did the Prosecutor and defense counsel with regard to their responses to the appeals.
